A $30 ticket plus fees and surcharges for a total of about $105 is the cost if you are cited for texting while driving.

At the first of the month, texting while driving became a primary offense, meaning law enforcement can stop drivers for that offense on its own. Washington Police Officer Lyle Hansen says it’s in place for safety. Iowa Code reads, “A person shall not use a hand-held electronic communication device to write, send, or view an electronic message while driving a motor vehicle unless the motor vehicle is at a complete stop off the traveled portion of the roadway.”

Hansen says if you do see emergency lights in your rear view mirrors to pull over, “The biggest thing to remember, the thing that aggravates me as a police officer even in a small town like Washington, Iowa, the law states that you stop immediately upon noticing red lights or sirens, and pull to the right, immediately. The reason that law is in place there is to get traffic pulled over. Because it’s not necessarily you that I want pulled over, maybe it’s two cars ahead of you, but if you just keep going down the roadways, the other car, the suspect car, is continuing to build ground on me.” He adds to also stop for funeral processions.

Hansen says there have already been citations issued for the offense of texting while driving in Washington and it’s more often middle-aged drivers, not teenagers. For more information about the new law listen to the Washington Page with Hansen.