A cop has gone viral after pulling over a woman who he alleged was texting and driving. Not the biggest problem in itself, right?
Well, she only has one hand - and that's the one he said he saw her using to text. As reported by CBS 12 News, the original citation was issued on February 11 at Lake Worth Beach, Florida.
It was a pretty standard traffic stop. The cop stopped the driver and said that he saw her using her phone. She started to record the incident, and asked him for clarification. She asks, "you saw me using my right hand to hold it?"
His response was, "I'm not disputing that." The issue with this is that the woman, Katie, is an amputee, and only has one hand. She later posted the clip on Tiktok, where it subsequently went crazy viral.
The specific charge she was handed was "Wireless Comm. Device/Handheld While Driving - First Offense". It comes with a pretty acceptable $116 penalty - of course, if you were actually using the phone.
She's vowed to fight the charges where she can. She's requested body cam footage from the incident.
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Florida's Law on Texting and Driving is Surprisingly Strict
You'd think that texting and driving is a pretty clear cut violation of the law. But, things aren't as clear cut as you'd first expect, at least in Florida.
According to a law expert, "the statute's actually really explicit. It says you have to be engaged in manually typing letters or numbers into the device."
What that means for Kate is that even if she had a hand to hold the phone in, she wouldn't automatically be breaking the law just by having it there.
An attorney with expertise in traffic offences, Ted Hollander, said that "whether she's holding it in her right hand or her left hand, it really doesn't matter. If you are not [driving] in a school zone or a construction zone, you are allowed to hold a cell phone."
And, according to Hollander, neither of those zone boxes were ticked on the citation, meaning she could well be in the clear.
