(Radio Iowa) – The state Transportation Commission has approved rules for the new hands free cellphone law that could lead to violators losing their driver’s license. The D-O-T’s Kathleen Meradith-Ayers the new rules make a hands-free violation impact your driving record.”Under the new law, a conviction for violating the new hands-free law will count when we’re tallying up the number of moving violations on a person’s driving record to determine whether their license should be suspended,” she says. Meradith-Ayers says they step in when you get too many violations. “The suspension is triggered once you get three moving violations in a 12-month period,” she says.

Meradith-Ayers says your license can be suspended for 90 days after you reach the three moving violations. “Once a driver’s license suspension happens, Usually they can either serve the suspension or you can appeal it and we will go through and make sure everything was applied correctly. For some of these sort of lower level suspensions, there is a class you can take in lieu of the suspension called the Driver Improvement Program,” says Meradith-Ayers. Iowa has a graduated driver’s license system for young people where they start with a restricted license before earning a regular one.

Meradith-Ayers says a hands-free violation carries more weight for them. “For younger drivers, there’s a much lower tolerance, so that as soon as you cause a crash or you get one traffic conviction, that often triggers a suspension or some sort of warning action against the license,” she says. The change needs one final approval from the Administrative Rules Committee and they will then be active.