A 60-year old man used a cellphone jammer on his commute for two years to keep people from talking on a cellphone while driving, Yahoo News reported.
Florida's law makes it permissible for drivers to use their cellphones while driving. To ensure that his fellow commuters remained focused on the road, Jason R. Humphreys operated a cellular jamming device during his daily commute between Seffner and Tampa, The Tampa Tribune reported.
Upon being caught by two local sheriff deputies, Humphreys was fined with $48,000.
After a local carrier noticed that something was messing with its towers, it immediately notified authorities.
"MetroPCS (which is owned by T-Mobile) notified the Federal Communications Commission that there was a peculiar outage on a certain patch of the Interstate 4 highway and downtown Tampa exactly a year ago," Yahoo News reported. "The FCC looked into it and discovered that wideband emissions - broadcast activity with wide frequencies or wavelengths - were emanating from a blue Toyota Highlander."
Humphreys continued to block other cellphones for another year until he got pulled over by two county sheriff deputies.
Since their two-way radios got disconnected from their dispatcher as soon as they approached his SUV, they became aware of the cellphone jammer. After searching the car, they were able to locate the device behind a seat cover.
After the jammer was tested by the department, it was discovered that the device could jam cell signals in three bands.
"Humphreys is alleged to have said that he'd been using the jammer for 16 to 24 months on his commute. Meaning pretty much everyone around him was unable to use a cellphone," according to Yahoo News.
Humphreys told investigators he thought the jammer would work in a 30-feet radius, said Larry McKinnon, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesman.
Instead, the jammer was powerful enough to be affecting cellphone towers.
It is illegal and dangerous to use the technology, McKinnon said.
"You are cutting off any communication for any type of emergency,'' McKinnon said. "You are potentially putting people's lives at risk."
