Be glad you don't live in our sister state of Washington. Last week, my wife and I drove our son to Seattle to start college at Green River in Auburn. Had we drove him to Seattle this week we could have received numerous fines under Washington's new DUI-E laws that took effect this week.

The most important and expensive of these laws have to do with driving under the influence of electronics - the "E" in DUI-E.

You are no longer allowed to talk on your phone while driving and that includes hands free driving and talking. You can't even look at GPS for directions which will get you a $136 ticket for a first offense. A second offense will get you a $234 ticket and your insurance company will also be informed, causing increases in you insurance premiums, so this could really be a quite costly offense.

Mike Kasper, Townsquare Media
Credit: Mike Kasper, Townsquare Media
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My wife would have received a ticket for what she's doing in this picture last weekend after we stopped at Dutch Bros. for coffee.

 

 

That's right you are no longer allowed to drink or eat anything in your car. If you're a smoker you can get a $99 ticket for driving and smoking.

These are secondary offenses which means you can't be stopped exclusively for one of these offenses, but if you're pulled over for another reason, you can be given an additional ticket and fine on top of what you were pulled over for in the first place.

The good news is that for the first six months Washington State Troopers will hand out warnings to drivers who break the new laws to help people get used to the new infractions. However, if a trooper believes that the drivers is particularly heinous while breaking any of the new DUI-E laws, they will write a ticket.

So if you're a woman who likes to put on make-up while driving to work or a guy who likes to shave or brush your teeth, these all can get you fines.

Aren't you glad you live in Idaho? But you want to keep these laws in mind if you have to drive any time in our border state of Washington. The excuse of "I don't live in Washington" won't get you out of the ticket.

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