Colorado law enforcement officers cited more than 200 drivers for using cellphones while behind the wheel during the first six months of the state’s new ban on drivers’ hand-held use of phones.
The new law — which prohibits people from using a cellphone while driving unless the device is in a hands-free setup — took effect at the start of 2025. Between Jan. 1 and June 30, officers issued citations to drivers in 206 cases statewide, according to data provided by the Colorado Judicial Department.
The first six months of citations reflect racial disparities — an issue that lawmakers were concerned about when the bill was debated at the Capitol. Black Coloradans make up about 4% of the state’s population, but accounted for almost 7% of hand-held phone use citations, the early data shows.
“Unfortunately, we have not mitigated the systemic bias, and evidence of that is things like this, disproportional representation,” said state Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver.
Amid concerns of pretextual policing, the new law passed with a compromise in which handheld cellphone use became a secondary offense — that is, it can’t be the main reason that a police officer pulls someone over. Rather, officers can pull drivers over for other crimes, like weaving between lanes or driving unsafely, and then can add the charge of handheld cellphone use to that case.
The first six months of data also shows a disparity in the number of white drivers charged with handheld cellphone use. White drivers accounted for 79% of citations, but white people make up about 71% of the state’s population.
That gap could be attributed to an undercount of Hispanic drivers. Only 8% of citations were issued to drivers described as Hispanic, although Hispanic people make up about 22% of the state’s population across races.
And while white and Hispanic defendants are differentiated in the judicial system’s data, a random Denver Post review of 20 cases in which the defendant was listed as white included 11 defendants with common Hispanic surnames.
Bacon said she was encouraged that the racial gap for Black drivers was not wider, and said she thinks the data would show a larger disparity if handheld use of cellphones was a primary offense.
“We were able to kind of keep the ability to use it pretextually off the table,” she said. “It just goes to show there is something wrong — you have disproportional representation with anything that has to do with the justice system.”
Offenses of the new law can result in a $75 fine and two license suspension points for a first-time violation and up to a $250 fine and four points for third offenses. First-time violations of the law can be dismissed if the person ticketed shows they have a hands-free accessory or provides proof of purchase.
The hands-free cellphone enforcement has so far resulted in just over $15,000 in fines, the data shows. Enforcement was heaviest in Jefferson County, where 27 drivers were cited, followed by Arapahoe, Adams and El Paso counties, the data shows. Thirteen drivers were cited in Denver during the first six months of the year, according to data provided by Denver County Court.
Sixty percent of cited drivers were between the ages of 16 and 35, the data shows. About 69% of drivers were men and 31% were women, according to the data.
In the 206 cases in which drivers were charged with handheld cellphone use, the most common other charges were careless driving, lane-use violation, driving under the influence, failure to display proof of insurance, and driving without a valid license, the judicial department’s data shows.
Lawmakers hoped to crack down on distracted driving through the cellphone ban, and proponents like the Colorado State Patrol focused on traffic safety as they pushed the measure into law.
Traffic crashes across the state are trending down, but it is likely too early to tell whether that downward trend can be attributed to the hand-held cellphone ban.
The Colorado Department of Transportation recorded just over 49,000 traffic crashes statewide between January and June 2024, including 1,800 crashes with serious injuries. The agency recorded 306 crash fatalities during the first six months of 2024.
So far in 2025, the agency has recorded 42,000 crashes, with almost 1,700 of those crashes with serious injuries and 280 fatalities. However, CDOT spokesman David Swenka said it typically takes three to four months for new crash data to be fully reported to the agency, so recent 2025 crash data is likely to change.
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