Senate Bill 1152<\/a>. The legislation would prohibit drivers from using a cellphone for any purpose, including playing music, checking directions and browsing social media.<\/p>\nThe legislation includes exceptions for when vehicles are stopped and for reporting emergencies.<\/p>\n
While Florida already prohibits texting while driving, the new bill would create broader restrictions on handheld device use behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
People in downtown Fort Myers expressed support for the measure.<\/p>\n
“I’m definitely for the ban, without a doubt,” Tony DeCuicies said. “You should not have a phone in your hand, nothing in your hand while driving.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, it needs to be addressed: forcefully,” Mary Wachman said.<\/p>\n
Frank Bonasso supported the concept but acknowledged his own phone use while driving.<\/p>\n
“Well, I do agree with that\u2026but I would be guilty of it because I do it,” Bonasso said.<\/p>\n
The bill has been introduced in the Florida Senate and awaits further legislative action.<\/p>\n
“This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Florida lawmakers are considering legislation that would ban people from holding cellphones while driving,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4489,73586,23861,4215,264,2761,356,34527,676,4294],"class_list":{"0":"post-152449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-downtown-fort-myers-florida","12":"tag-florida-bills","13":"tag-florida-republicans","14":"tag-florida-senate","15":"tag-fox-4","16":"tag-hunter-walterman","17":"tag-lee-county","18":"tag-republican-party","19":"tag-vero-beach","20":"tag-wftx"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}