Military is restricting car phoning

Places like New York and New Jersey started it — no talking on hand-held cell phones while driving a vehicle.

In Utah, Salt Lake County workers and drivers in cities like Sandy and American Fork have restrictions on driving while talking on cell phones.

Now, military bases here are following suit, albeit without a deadline for implementation of a new restriction handed down by the Department of Defense.

Defense has issued cell phone restrictions for drivers on department installations. Previously, anyone driving a government vehicle on a military base was prohibited from talking on a hand-held cell phone.

With the new rule, about the only time drivers are allowed to use a cell phone on a military base is if they are in a parked vehicle or they're using a hands-free phone, according to a recent article for the American Forces Information Service.

The new policy applies to anyone driving a private or government-owned vehicle.

"As of right now, we have not put that into effect on our base," said 1st Lt. Genieve David, media relations chief for Hill Air Force Base. "We are aware of the policy — it's going to have a huge impact on everybody."

Safety, David pointed out, is the reason why Defense Department officials want policies in place at every military base.

About 23,000 people work at Hill and 13,000 of those are civilians — the rest are military, contractors or reservists.

But a spokesman for the Air Force Safety Center in New Mexico told David that the new policy applies only to Army bases, so far.

Last August Col. Anne Davis, Tooele Army Depot commander, signed a policy regarding driving while talking on the phone, which applies to the approximately 540 civilians who work at the base on any given day.

Depot policy extends its restriction on cell phone use to anyone operating a forklift, heavy equipment or shop machinery. Violating the policy, Davis wrote in a letter to employees, could result in "disciplinary action," which she did not specify.

West of the Depot at Dugway Proving Ground, three warning tickets have so far been so far have been issued to drivers who have violated the cell phone rule at that base.

"When my phone rings, I pull over," said Paula Nicholson, public affairs officer at Dugway. "I'm not going to take a chance."