Exercising his executive powers, Mayor David Roberts has vetoed a new ordinance that would make it a crime to hold a cellular phone while driving. The first veto of the Roberts era may overturn legislation that was passed by a 9-0 margin at the Sept. 19 City Council meeting.
The City Council has 45 days from the Sept 28 to overturn the Mayor’s veto by a two-thirds majority vote of the council. As of Wednesday night, the council said that as of now they do not plan to overturn the veto, but will go out to the community to gather more information before making a final decision.
"I recognize that this ordinance was proposed with good intentions, namely to promote public safety," said Mayor Roberts in a Sept. 28 written statement addressed to the City Council. "However, I do not support the enactment of this ordinance."
The mayor vetoed the ordinance for three different reasons, he said.
The first reason is that there are already laws on the books that crack down on reckless driving, and a cell phone ban might lead to redundancy. "Existing traffic regulations already provide police officers with the discretion to cite drivers engaged in careless or reckless behavior, regardless of whether such behavior is caused by talking on a cellular phone, adjusting their radio, looking at a map, or any other activity which endangers or disrupts the safe and orderly flow of traffic," said the mayor in his statement.
The mayor also added that unless the ban is regional or statewide, such a ban is unworkable.
"It is unfair and impractical to expect drivers to learn which of New Jersey’s 566 municipalities permit then to drive speaking on their cellular phones and which do not," Roberts said. "This issue must be addressed from a regional perspective."
Currently, Marlboro and Nutley townships ban the holding of cell phones while driving. Presently there are 23 towns investigating enacting bans or that are engaged in litigation dealing with possibly flawed cell phone ordinances.
The final reason that Roberts gave for the veto was to save the city money in litigation. Roberts said that some municipalities have passed similar cell phone laws and are the subject of lawsuits as a result. "It would be fiscally prudent for Hoboken to delay passage of any local ordinance regarding cellular phone use until the State Superior or Federal District Court issue a preliminary ruling on the authority of New Jersey municipalities to enact such regulations," he wrote. "The alternative is to expose the city to significant legal costs to defend the validity of this proposed ordinance."
For similar reasons, former Jersey City mayor and current gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler vetoed an ordinance passed by the Jersey City council on Sept. 13, 2000 that would have banned the holding of cell phones while driving within Jersey City limits.
Not all of the Hoboken City Council members were happy about the mayor’s decision to veto.
"While I care about litigation and how much it costs the city, you can’t put a price on human life," said the sponsor of the ordinance, 1st Ward Councilwoman Theresa Castellano, Wednesday night.
Castallano also made several references to a 1997 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that talking on a cell phone quadruples the risk of an accident and is almost as dangerous as being drunk behind the wheel.
"We must get the state to pass this full force," said 2nd Ward Councilman Richard DelBoccio. "We need to approach the state swiftly and get to work on it statewide for it to be effective."
While Castellano agreed that council must pursue the state to pass legislation, she added that by passing the ordinance they give the state extra motivation in passing future legislation.
"The more cities that go and do this, the more it encourages the state to do it statewide," she said.
On a related topic, the mayor gave an executive order Wednesday prohibiting the use of cell phones by city employees while driving a city vehicle, unless it is considered an emergency. The mayor also prohibited the use of city-owned cellular phones when driving any vehicle not owned by the city.