Gov. Josh Shapiro signed more than 150 new laws last year and some of them are now taking effect or will take effect in the first months of the new year.
Many of them are adjustments to the workings of state and local government, unlikely to be noticed by the average resident. Others, their authors hope, will improve the health, safety and equity of daily life in Pennsylvania.
Put down the phone and drive
As technology changes the way we get around, Pennsylvania’s vehicle laws have been slow to catch up with other states.
In June, Shapiro signed Paul Miller Jr.’s law, which makes using a smartphone or other mobile devices while driving a ticketable offense. The law is named after a 21-year-old Lackawanna County man killed when a distracted truck driver crashed into his car in 2010. His parents, Eileen Miller and Paul Miller Sr., pushed state lawmakers to pass the law for almost 12 years.
Pennsylvania banned texting while driving in 2011, but that failed to preempt the explosion in smartphone use already underway at the time. As a result, police could not force drivers to surf the internet or even watch movies on their smartphones while driving.
Paul Miller Jr.’s law makes it a primary offense to use an interactive mobile device while driving, meaning police need no other reason to stop a vehicle. For this reason, Pennsylvania’s Black Legislative Caucus insisted that liability provisions be part of the new law.
The law, which is the 29th such measure in the country, also requires state police and municipal police in cities with populations of 5,000 or more to collect data on race, ethnicity, gender and a driver’s age and other details during a traffic stop. The data will allow authorities to test whether the distracted driving law has an effect on the number of pretext traffic stops based on the driver’s skin color or ethnicity.
The law comes into force on June 5, 2025, but in the first year police will only issue warnings. After that, a violation will result in a $50 fine plus court costs and fees. It also allows a person convicted of vehicular homicide using a mobile device to be sentenced to an additional five years in prison.
Electric vehicle owners pay their share
Pennsylvania gets nearly three-quarters of its road maintenance funding from federal and state fuel taxes. But with the growing popularity of electric vehicles (and increasingly efficient internal combustion engine vehicles), tax revenues are declining.
This April, electric vehicle owners will begin paying additional registration fees to help pay for wear and tear on Pennsylvania’s roads. It will replace the alternative fuel tax, which is essentially an honor system for electric vehicle users to pay a mileage tax and is poorly enforced.
Electric vehicle owners will pay a $200 fee when registering or renewing their registration this year. The fee would increase to $250 in 2026, then increase based on the Consumer Price Index in 2027 and subsequent years. Owners of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which use gasoline and electricity, will pay 25% of the electric vehicle levy.
Pennsylvania joins at least 39 other states that impose fees or taxes on electric vehicles. When the fees take effect, they will be the second highest in the country after Texas. Pennsylvania EV Fee Legislation met opposition when initially introduced with a fee of $285.
Even when it was reduced to $250, environmentalists, including state Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware), chairman of the Environmental and Natural Resources Protection Committee, said it could slow the adoption of electric vehicles, seen as key to reducing carbon emissions.
Fight against lawlessness on the highways
Car culture has long been a pillar of American society, but in recent years, street racing and car competitions have spiraled out of control, sometimes with violent and deadly consequences.
In the spring of 2023, state troopers shot and killed an 18-year-old man who police said struck officers as they responded to a street race that closed I-95 in Philadelphia. Last fall, at least 10 people were arrested and a police officer was injured after a series of car rallies in Philadelphia where drivers blocked traffic to do donuts and set off fireworks in the streets.
Shapiro signed in October “Put a stop to street racing” Act, which makes “drifting” punishable by a $500 fine for a first offense and a $2,000 fine and six months of impoundment for subsequent offenses.
The law defines drifting as “the act of steering a vehicle into a turn with the intent of causing the rear wheel(s) of the vehicle to lose traction and create a controlled or uncontrolled lateral skid.” » Drifting is a racing technique popularized in Japanese car culture and through films such as the “Fast and the Furious” series. This is often practiced at illegal car rallies.
The law will come into force in September.
Shapiro also signed House Bill 150, which prohibits the use, sale or possession of license plate flipping devices. As seen on fictional spy James Bond’s Aston Martin, license plate flippers are devices that allow motorists to hide their plate numbers with the flip of a switch.
With the passage of the law, Pennsylvania joins a growing number of states that explicitly ban license plate flippers, which sponsors say can prevent vehicles from being identified to avoid tolls and tickets or to more harmful reasons.
Violations carry a $2,000 fine and the law takes effect January 18.
Expand access to health care
The first law Shapiro signed when he took office in 2023 requires health insurance to cover the costs of preventive screening for breast, ovarian, prostate and other cancers. In 2024, he signed two more that will improve access to health care by mandating insurance coverage for genetic testing and telemedicine.
Biomarker testing is an evolving area of medicine in which a patient’s genetic profile is used to allow doctors to identify the most effective treatments for cancer, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and sclerosis. lateral amyotrophic disease, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
According to the American Cancer Society, targeted treatment guided by biomarker testing leads to fewer side effects, better outcomes and reduced costs for patients fighting chronic diseases. Insurers have been slow to recognize the benefits, leaving patients with the choice of paying out of pocket or undergoing treatment without testing.
“Many people of color, low-income people, and rural communities have been left out of the benefits of biomarker-based care,” the ACS said in a statement this month.
Law 39 came into force on January 1 and applies to both Medicaid and private and employer-provided insurance plans.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, many healthcare providers turned to telemedicine using video calls to avoid potential spread of the virus. Act 42 clarifies that insurers must cover telemedicine visits and cannot exclude treatment solely because it is provided via telemedicine. The law came into effect in October.
Speech therapy
Rep. Brandon Markosek (D-Allegheny) enlisted the former Charlotte Bobcats star Michael Kidd-Gilchristto highlight the need to improve access to speech therapy for children.
Marksek overcame a stutter as a child with the help of a speech therapist paid for by his parents’ health insurance. But Kidd-Gilchrist suffered ridicule and isolation from his peers because of his stuttering, a condition for which he received no therapy until he became an adult.
Now retired from the NBA, Kidd-Gilchrist has made improving access to speech therapy his cause. Shapiro signed Markosek’s legislation to require health insurance to cover speech therapy for stuttering in October. The law came into force on December 16.
First responders
Since the 1990s, Pennsylvania courts have barred first responders from receiving workers’ compensation while recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
In October, Shapiro signed a law clarifying that police officers, firefighters, emergency medical service providers and other first responders do not need to prove that post-traumatic stress injury was the result of abnormal working conditions .
The invoice is main sponsor (D-Delaware), said his father, who died by suicide in 2003, told him about the chaotic and traumatic scenes he worked as a Philadelphia firefighter. She said in May, before the bill passed the House, that she would never know if the workers’ compensation paid to her father would have saved his life, but that she knew it would save someone else.
O’Mara said that legislation corrects a wrong for the state’s first responders, while also providing protections for municipalities and employers. The new law takes effect October 19, 2025, one year after Shapiro signed it.
Lawmakers also updated the Workers’ Compensation Act to allow claimants to receive their benefits in direct depositthis is how 95% of workers receive their compensation. Since the law took effect on December 29, workers’ compensation agencies and self-insured employers are now allowed to pay benefits by direct deposit, but will not be required to offer this option until October .
