Los Alamos County stiffens ordinance to curb cellphone use while driving, SFNM, 7 May 2025

Los Alamos County stiffens ordinance to curb cellphone use while driving

By Alaina Mencinger amencinger@sfnewmexican.com

May 7, 2025 (updated May 8, 2025)

Half of the juniors and seniors at Los Alamos High School admit to texting and driving, according to a recently adopted county ordinance.

Soon, they’ll have to pay up if they get caught.

The Los Alamos County Council voted unanimously Tuesday evening in favor of a measure to penalize cellphone use on the road with a $200 fine.

It’s a significantly steeper fine than the one mandated by state law. Although texting and driving is illegal in New Mexico, a first violation nets just a $25 fine. A second violation of the law, which includes any handheld phone use, increases to $50.

Like the state, the county already has a distracted driving ordinance, Los Alamos police Chief Dino Sgambellone said. But this new ordinance specifically calls out cellphone use, which Sgambellone said has been a significant issue.

The county ordinance doesn’t apply to people making hands-free calls or texts, or people calling emergency services.

Councilor Randall Ryti said a large proportion of the accidents in the county are caused by distracted driving, though not exclusively due to cellphone use.

“[I] hope that this helps with sending the message and help with the distracted driving that we do see,” Ryti said.

Sgambellone said the legislation is part of a broader traffic safety agenda, which includes efforts to reduce speeding. A 2022 regional report by the state Department of Transportation found distracted driving was responsible for seven crashes in Los Alamos County out of 167 crashes. Driver inattention contributed to the highest number of crashes, accounting for around 37% of the total. Speed was another top cause, accounting for 15 crashes, although it dwarfed in comparison to inattention.

With a large number of commuters in the county — more than 4,000 Los Alamos National Laboratory employees live in Santa Fe County — traffic safety has been a millstone for officials, especially after the deaths of LANL chemist Philip Leonard and former lab director Charles McMillan last year. Leonard died in a February 2024 crash on N.M. 501 and McMillan in September on N.M. 502.

A 2023 map created by the University of New Mexico’s Traffic Research Unit shows crashes were concentrated around N.M. 502, the main road to reach the lab. Last year, the county held a public meeting on how to improve pedestrian and traffic safety on a section of the road known as Trinity Drive. Recommendations based on a 2016 road safety audit included considering a “road diet,” or reducing the number of lanes or the posted speed limit and encouraging bicycle ridership. The design should be completed later this year.

The safety improvement project recently received an additional $3.5 million boost in grant funding, according to County Manager Anne Laurent.

Published comment by Greg Mello:

An important article, as far as it goes. Thank you for the research into this subject, which can be difficult due to official intransigence in some quarters. LANL has not taken effective actions to reduce commuting, which is a personal safety problem (NNSA: "the terror part" of peoples' day) and a climate catastrophe, and increases congestion and danger for everybody who travels these roads.

Effective actions are hard to come by because the usual solutions (widening roads) are inapplicable because of topographic constraints, the presence of important Native American cultural sites, and not least, the dispersion of LANL destinations and the need for security on the LANL campus. "Taking a bus" would entail driving to and from a collection point, and for many people, four bus rides per day in order to avoid bringing big unsecured buses onto LANL property. LANL has outgrown the road network, as well as the local housing market, which NNSA has noted is "10,000" units short. (By the way, "more than 4,000" underestimates the number of commuters from Santa Fe County. LANL "employment" figures are noticeably squirrelly; there are more than 19,000 employees and about 60% of them commute. I think there are 6,000 or more commuters from Santa Fe County, not counting subcontractors. Remember, Santa Fe County includes part of Espanola.),

The longer-term solutions involve either shrinking LANL back toward something less disproportionate, or creating higher housing density in Los Alamos County, which opens up a number of more realistic short-range transportation options. Sprawl, onto lands currently owned by DOE, is another "answer," but this comes with other problems too, and DOE isn't all that interested. Higher density would be good for business in Los Alamos County, which is a kind of desert for some services at present. At present, LANL exports the many costs of providing homes for LANL workers onto surrounding counties, harming them fiscally and creating congestion for services while also increasing housing costs. Two years ago, LANL director Thom Mason said that LANL employees occupy 40% of the new housing built in Santa Fe over the past 5 years. That's a heavy impact on home prices. Overall, the commuting model for sustaining an oversized LANL imposes a lot of costs on everyone.

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