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Message: <blockquote data-quote="vvvvvvv" data-source="post: 2122796" data-attributes="member: 5151">That wouldn't hold up unless it was an idiot being charged. The fine is too high for any half-intelligent offender to plea out. There's no reasonable assumption that can be made by the officer that can't be easily refuted. If you're passing out tickets just for having a phone in the driver's hand, drivers will just hold the phone lower where they have zero view of the road. The fine is too low for the authorities to effectively prosecute.First, a subpoena that is for detailed phone records won't be honored by the majority of data service providers out there. Yeah, on TV, they subpoena a stack of phone records all the time, but that's not the way it works in the real world. A subpoena is not sufficient for private data such as text messages and voicemail or transaction detail - you need a warrant. But even then, first you have to notify the service provider with a request to preserve data to ensure the data will still be available when the warrant is served. By the time the state gets the records, they're already out more than the $500 fine.Additionally, text messages aren't the only way people communicate with phones. Some use IRC, VoIP, email, communication over VPNs, etc. How likely is it that you're going to get the data that you would need to prosecute and prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?Adding charges just to make a defendant plea out to a lesser charge is nothing more than a shakedown with the endorsement of the morally corrupt.</blockquote>

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