ALBANY – New York City cops handed out 43,530 tickets last year to drivers caught clutching cell phones in their hands, The Post has learned.
And at $100 a pop, that’s at least $4.4 million for the cash-starved city’s kitty.
The eye-catching total represents more than half the tickets handed out statewide in the first year of a ban on the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, according to state Department of Motor Vehicles figures.
“People believed law enforcement wouldn’t be there watching, but they are doing their job well,” said Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, the Brooklyn Democrat who authored the cell-phone ban law.
Ortiz and other officials say it’s no surprise the numbers are high in the Big Apple given that the overwhelming majority of the state’s cell phones are found here.
But when the hand-held cell-phone ban went into effect – drivers are permitted to use the phones with a hands-free device – some questioned whether city cops, after an initial push, would drop enforcement to focus on other matters.
However, new statistics show that enforcement has remained steady. Since April, the numbers of tickets given out each month ranged from 3,400 to a high of 4,870.
Drivers in Manhattan got stopped the most, with 12,160 tickets for illegal cell-phone use handed out last year.
At 11,170, Queens had the second highest total, with Brooklyn close behind at 10,920.
Staten Island saw 5,260 tickets given out while the Bronx had the lowest total in the city at 4,020.
Detective Dennis Laffin, an NYPD spokesman, said hand-held cell-phone users are not being targeted any more or less than other traffic violators.
Statewide, 79,200 tickets for violating the cell-phone ban were written in 2002. “We keep reinforcing it all the time during out monthly meetings with the troop commanders,” said State Police Maj. Jack Van Steenburg, of the traffic division.
But while municipalities are benefiting from the extra revenue, the jury is still out on whether New York’s roadways are actually safer because of the law.
New York is one year into a four-year study on the number of accidents attributed to cell-phone use.
Motor Vehicles spokesman Joseph Picchi could not provide figures on how many accidents in 2002 were related to cell-phone use.
But a recent study by the Harvard University’s Center for Risk Analysis found that 6 percent of the car accidents nationally each year result from people talking on cell phones.
The Harvard study estimates 2,600 deaths a year nationally are related to cell phone use while driving, up from an estimate of 1,000 just two years ago.
The study also estimated cell-phone-related car accidents resulted in 570,000 injuries a year and 1.5 million property-damage crashes.
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WIRELESS CRACKDOWN
Tickets issued for cell phone-use while driving in 2002
Manhattan – 12,160
Queens – 11,170
Brooklyn – 10,920
Staten Island – 5,260
Bronx – 4,020
Citywide – 43,530
Statewide – 79,200
Source: State Department of Motor Vehicles