The state Supreme Court is dismissing a traffic violation against a former New Hampshire lawmaker who was accused of violating the state’s hands-free device law while driving, even though he was using his vehicle’s Bluetooth connection to take a call.
J.R. Hoell, who has served as a Republican representing Dunbarton in the State House, was pulled over in Concord in 2021. At the time, he had his hand on the steering wheel while also holding his phone. He was talking over his vehicle’s hands-free Bluetooth system.
“And apparently the police thought that holding a phone and holding a steering wheel, concurrently, was a violation of the law,” said Hoell. “And that is not the case.”
The New Hampshire Supreme Court agrees. In a unanimous order released Wednesday, the court dismissed the traffic violation against Hoell, reversing a lower court’s ruling which previously upheld the ticket.
“The defendant was not holding his cellphone to accomplish the task of routing the call to his hands-free Bluetooth device. Instead, holding the cellphone was unrelated to the task that the defendant was using the cellphone to perform — it was as if the defendant were holding any other object,” the court wrote in its order dismissing the ticket.
New Hampshire’s hands-free law was enacted in July 2015 to curb distracted driving. Hoell was in the Legislature at the time and voted against the measure, arguing it was poorly written.
He said he’s heard anecdotal stories of other people ticketed for similar infractions. The state’s Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for information about how many similar violations may have been issued.
“It wasn't over $124,” Hoell said, referring to the fee attached to his original violation. “It was really about the principle of: law enforcement should follow what's written on the books.”
He added that people should pay attention to the road, as he says he was doing just before he was pulled over in 2021. “That's the important part in all this.”
