Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski will soon sign into law a requirement that drivers use a hands-free device when talking on a cell phone.

Meanwhile, on July 1, Washington state will mark the one year anniversary of a similar, but weaker law. And state troopers report it's not working very well. Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

To hear State Troopers tell it, Washington drivers are largely ignoring the one-year-old ban on driving with a cell phone glued to your ear.

Christina Martin: “My personal observation on the road is I haven't seen anything change in the last year.”

Trooper Christina Martin says sure more people are using BlueTooths or head-sets. But you don't have to look far and wide to find drivers still steering with one hand and chatting on the phone with the other.

That is until they see a cop.

Christina Martin: “If you come up in a marked patrol car, you'll see somebody, if they spot you they'll put the phone down or remove it from their ear – so they know they're wrong.”

In Washington, the hands free law is a secondary offense. That means troopers can't stop you for it, but they can write a $124 ticket if they get you for something else.

But in the first year of the law, the State Patrol reports it only wrote 1600 tickets for talking on a cell phone and another 230 for texting while driving. Compare that to the nearly 300,000 speeding tickets issued last year.