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Ohio state senator seen driving during video meeting on same day that distracted driving bill is introduced
By Paul Best
Published May 06, 2021
Ohio state Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Powell, was seen driving during a remote Office of Budget and Management meeting on Monday, the same day that a bill was introduced to punish distracted driving.
At the beginning of the virtual meeting, Brenner can be seen sitting idly in the driver's seat of his car, which appears to be at a standstill.
As the meeting gets underway, Brenner starts fidgeting with his device and eventually turns on a virtual background of a home office. The new background didn't perfectly camouflage what he was doing though, as the state senator can still be seen driving with a seatbelt over his shoulder.
(Ohio Channel)
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John Fortney, Brenner's director of communications, said that the senator wasn't doing anything illegal.
"Senator Brenner was simply following the law, using hand free audio technology," Fortney told Fox News in a statement.
But as the Columbus Dispatch pointed out, the virtual meeting ironically came on the same day that a bill was introduced in Ohio's General Assembly to punish distracted driving.
House Bill 283 would ban Ohioans from driving and using any "electronic wireless communications device," such as a cellphone, laptop, or "any device capable of displaying a video, movie, broadcast television image, or visual image."
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The bill does allow a driver to use a cellphone as long as it is through a "hands-free device feature… without the use of either hand except to activate, deactivate, or initiate the feature."
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-irony-state-senator-driving-video-meeting-distracted-driving-bill