Come Wednesday, it will be a secondary offense to:
1. Manually enter multiple letters or text in the device as a means of communicating with another person; or
2. Read any email or text message transmitted to the device or stored within the device, provided that this prohibition shall not apply to any name or number stored in the device nor to any caller identification information.
The law as approved by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor is here. The provision doesn’t apply if one is “lawfully parked or stopped.” I’m no lawyer but that seems to indicate that it is OK to read and send texts when sitting at a stoplight or when stopped in traffic.
For those who insist on texting/emailing while driving, take a look at Vlingo. This speech-to-text application, once properly trained, does a great job. I’ve been using it for several months to respond to emails and to post to Twitter (when lawfully stopped, of course 😉 ).
One question for the lawyers out there: the law says “on the highways in the Commonwealth” without providing a definition. Does that mean highways only – such as I-264 or I-64 – or does it also apply to local streets?
UPDATE: Thanks to The Jaded JD, who heeded my call on the definition of highways in the comments. The relevant section is Virginia Code § 46.2-100 and it says:
“Highway” means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way or place open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel in the Commonwealth, including the streets and alleys, and, for law-enforcement purposes, (i) the entire width between the boundary lines of all private roads or private streets that have been specifically designated “highways” by an ordinance adopted by the governing body of the county, city, or town in which such private roads or streets are located and (ii) the entire width between the boundary lines of every way or place used for purposes of vehicular travel on any property owned, leased, or controlled by the United States government and located in the Commonwealth.
Guess that’s that.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
The definition of highway is defined at Code § 46.2-100. Little known trivium: the definition was amended in 2007 in response to Fourth Circuit rulings that the roads on federal enclaves (e.g., Fort Lee, Defense General Supply Center-Petersburg, the CIA Headquarters) were not “open for the use of the public.”
The law is also set up to make it a secondary offense, so technically it’s OK to text while driving and as long as you are not breaking any other laws in the process they can’t pull you over for it.
Um, obviously the definition is provided there, not defined there.
Shame on you, Kenney the Younger. The act is illegal whether you’re caught in it or not. It is not technically OK to text while driving; it is illegal (or will be on Wednesday).
Here is a link to the definition.
Well that settles that.
Oooh, can we set up an org where I can get full-throated cheers whenever I stumble up on stage and declare that they’ll have to pry my Treo from my cold, dead hands? Or that texting doesn’t kill people, drivers do?
Ha!
The fact that the legislature actually had to address this issue means that Virginians have exhausted their stockpile of common sense. I suppose there are people who would defend reading the newspaper and watching television while driving as well?
It’s the youngsters. I rode with a guy (once) who texted with both hands while steering with his knees! If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Viv,
It’s not so much the steering as the watching the road that bothers me. As someone who commutes nearly an hour to work every morning, I can tell you that there are enough stupid and inattentive drivers on the road without people writing letters while they drive. Hopefully, the texting ban would include Twitter, right?
Oh, I understand the watching the road part. And yes, the ban – at least as I read it – applies to Twitter.
Why not stop people from using their cell phones? That is just as dangerous for goodness sakes!!
The law says your are to drive with BOTH hands on the wheel. So that is breaking the law.
I am saddened to lose the right to text while driving,and have been sending extra texts while driving for the past few months. I will continue to text at stoplights.
I once got a parking ticket in a private parking lot and argued that the parking lot did not constitute a “street” under the ordinance. The judge didn’t seem to care.