In the spring of 2023, after the state’s new texting and driving law went into effect, officials including Gov. Mike DeWine and news media gave it a lot of attention.

The Vindicator asked the commander of the Canfield Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol about it in May of 2023, and he cited statistics showing that serious crashes and fatal crashes in the state were down as of May 30, 2023, compared with the previous year.

He said he observed people were concerned enough about the new law to use their phones in the car less. “I would like to think the new texting law has played a factor in the numbers being down,” then-Lt. Eric Brown said.

At the time, police officers were issuing only warnings. Citations began in October 2023. But the interest in the new law seemed to drop off after that.

In mid-September of 2025, the Highway Patrol brought its Motorcycle Unit to Mahoning County to focus on reducing crash-causing violations such as distracted driving, impaired driving and following too closely.

Then in mid-June, The Vindicator attended a hearing in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown and observed three people in court for texting-and-driving charges, a misdemeanor. Court personnel confirmed the court handles many such cases.

TEXTING CITATIONS RISE

It raised the question: Just how many texting citations are being issued in Mahoning County?

The Vindicator used the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Courtview case-management system to look up cases of texting while driving in the county’s area courts in Boardman, Austintown, Canfield and Sebring and found that 912 texting citations were issued in 2024, the first full year that citations were issued.

The number was 1,382 in 2025.

And there have been 821 citations issued between Jan. 1, 2026, and June 30, 2026, which suggests that the number of citations issued by the end of 2026 might be about 1,642, an increase of 80% since 2024.

Another way to look at it is there were 416 citations written in the first half of 2024. There were 558 in the first half of 2025. And there were 821 in the first half of this year, almost double the number in 2024.

The database for the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts office does not include the texting while driving citations filed in several municipal courts in Mahoning County, so the citations issued there are not included. They are the courts in Youngstown, Struthers and Campbell.

As for who is writing most of the citations, the answer is that it is mostly the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

When two of the larger police departments in Mahoning County whose cases go through the county area courts were asked how many texting while driving citations they have written between 2024 and now, Austintown said 38, and Boardman said 25.

The total number of texting citations during that same time frame in the area courts is 3,115. Austintown and Boardman account for 63 of the citations. The Vindicator observed that several other police departments have written texting citations, including Beaver Township. It’s not clear how many. But it’s apparent the Ohio State Highway Patrol accounts for the majority of them.

Numbers pulled from the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s OSTATS database suggests that it’s not just Mahoning County paying more attention to texting while driving.

The database states that on a statewide basis, texting citations were at 22,668 during the first half of 2025 but were at 27,336 during the first half of this year.

OSTATS says Mahoning County’s texting citations were at 527 in the first half of 2025 but are at 885 in the first half of 2026.

OSTATS says Trumbull County’s texting citations were at 459 in the first half of 2025 and are at 319 in the first half of 2026.

TICKETED IN AUSTINTOWN

The Vindicator spoke with one of the three people in court for a texting-while-driving offense in mid-June.

Deena Fleischman of Middlefield said she was cited for texting while driving because she was using her phone for navigation in her car even though her car has Bluetooth technology.

She said she could have been using hands-free, Bluetooth navigation, but she didn’t know how to do it well. She has since learned.

Fleishman said on May 19 her phone was in a holder attached to her windshield as she was driving on state Route 46 in Austintown. She stopped at a traffic light. She had taken the phone from its holder to see if she was going to the correct field for a grandchild’s baseball game.

As the light changed, she may have started to accelerate as she put the phone back in its holder, she said. A state trooper was apparently stationary nearby because a short time after she drove away, he traffic-stopped her. She said she never saw him before he pulled her over.

“It doesn’t matter, once your phone is in your hand, they will go get you because there is so much distracted driving out there. Everybody is texting, so I understand,” she said of getting the ticket.

She said she thinks it is important to enforce the texting law. “Something has to change,” she said, referring to the number of crashes caused by texting while driving.

She said she and her husband have a motorcycle, but they are thinking about selling it because so many people are texting and driving.

“When I am driving and I look over, almost every one of every three or four people are texting or on their phones, whether it’s TikTok or what they are doing,” she said.

She said law enforcement sometimes sits in a construction zone with flashers on to call attention to the workers. But without that, she worries about construction workers being killed.

She said she thinks law enforcement is cracking down on texting while driving, perhaps more than speeding. “They have to because it taught me a lesson. I don’t even think about picking up my phone now. I answer my phone through my car radio and that’s it. It can wait.”

She said she used to think it was better to get directions on her phone. “I really didn’t really know how to use (navigation/Bluetooth) that well. And then my husband showed me. He’s like ‘This is all you do, Deena.’ And I’m like ‘OK.’ I just didn’t want to take the time to learn it.”

She said having to go to court was embarrassing.

“You don’t belong there. I felt like I was sitting there with people who I don’t associate with or belong with. I’m not in that criminal crowd. I’m educated. I’m a nurse. And then it’s expensive.” She had to pay a $150 fine and take an online class to eliminate the points she received for the violation.

She said having to go to court was “very inconvenient. I had to go there, show up. It can give you anxiety to have to go there and face the judge, all that stuff,” she said.

When told that the Highway Patrol seems to have written the most citations for texting while driving in Mahoning County, she said maybe that may be because they see more fatalities because of the speed of traffic on the highways, where they do much of their work.

The course she took after being convicted of texting while driving is available to the public to watch. It is called the Distracted Driving Safety Course from the Ohio Department of Public Safety on Ohio Learn at https://otso.ohio.gov/programs/ohio-driver-training/for-drivers/resources/distracted-driving-safety-course/

It requires the person to create an account so that if they are taking it because of a conviction, they get credit for taking it.

Among the more impactful parts of the video are the stories of individuals who knew that texting and other distractions are dangerous, but did it anyway and paid a high price — one with her life and one with having serious injuries in a crash.

OSP

The Vindicator asked Sgt. Jeremy A. Kindler, regional public information officer for the Ohio State Highway Patrol, whether the number of texting while driving citations being written in Mahoning County is reducing phone-related distraction crashes.

Kindler responded: “Distracted driving endangers everyone on the road, and troopers see the consequences of those choices every day. Ohio’s hands‑free law is making a difference, but no law can replace a driver’s responsibility to stay focused.

“Even a split second of inattention can lead to a crash that changes lives forever. When motorists keep their eyes on the road and eliminate distractions, they make our communities safer and help prevent tragedies that never should occur,” he stated in an email.

LOCAL COUNTIES

The Ohio Department of Public Safety issued a safety bulletin in April 2026. It showed the number of distracted-driving crashes in all 88 counties of Ohio from 2021 to 2025 by total number of crashes, not per capita.

Mahoning County was in the highest category with 1,185 crashes. Also among the higher counties are Stark, Summit and Cuyahoga.

Trumbull (861 crashes) and Portage (829) counties are in the next highest category. Columbiana County (259 crashes) is in the next highest category.