The early returns are in and it appears that New Hampshire’s new hands-free driving law is having its intended effect.

New Hampshire on July 1 became the 15th state to ban the use of hand-held electronic devices behind the wheel, and police no­ticed the difference.

"We would like to highlight that drivers were found to be overwhelmingly compli­ant with the new distracted driving law, which went into effect July 1," New Hamp­shire State Police said in a state­ment fol­lowing the July 4th weekend.

A n d when they n o t i c e d drivers who weren’t com­pliant, police stepped in.

State Police issued 96 cita­tions and 47 warnings over the holiday weekend, and local police also handed out their share of paperwork to serve as a reminder.

In Nashua, police issued 88 warnings about the new law through the first three weeks.

In Hudson, "We didn’t have an alarming rate of violators, but we did have some." Hudson Police Sgt. Tad Dionne said. "For the most part, we issued re­minders in the form of a warning."

Anecdotal evidence from around the state suggests that people are trying to comply and police have no­ticed fewer drivers on their phones.

"Hopefully we start see­ing more people rely on the hands-free systems and it will have the desired out­come," said Nashua Police Department Deputy Chief Mike Carignan.

"I think it could," said Hudson’s Dionne. "This is one of those laws that if people abide by it will hope­fully help reduce distrac­tionary accidents."

Which is the whole idea behind the new law, one of the most restrictive in the country. It forbids m o t o r i s t s from using phones or GPS devices while driving or even while paused at a stoplight.

State police say 116 fatal crashes in New Hampshire over the past four years have been caused by dis­tracted driving.

Ultimately, the idea is to change people’s habits be­hind the wheel, which isn’t always easy.

"I’ve caught myself reaching for my phone, you really have to have a con­sensus effort to put it away somewhere," Canignan said.

That’s probably a com­mon reaction among many motorists, but whatever the reason the phone is beckon­ing, it can wait.