California drivers are a creative bunch, especially it seems when they’re trying to ignore the hands-free cell phone law.

You see some drivers holding their cell phone in their right hand, rather than their left, perhaps hoping that a passing police officer won’t see it.

Some hold the phone several inches away from their head, as if the distance makes it legal.

Some women tuck their phone under their hair to try to hide it.

Some drivers hold their phone below the car window in hopes of escaping notice.

But it doesn’t always work, and all of the trickery is illegal.

“The law doesn’t say ear-free, it says hands-free,” said CHP Officer Jon Sloat, the spokesman for the local patrol office.

“People are going extra lengths to hold their phones,” but that merely causes them to be further distracted in their driving, he said. And the whole point of the hands-free law is to cut down on drivers’ distractions.

He said officers are aware of the various tricks motorists use.

Some drivers stopped because they were weaving or driving erratically turned out to have been surreptitiously using their cell phone, he said.

Some motorists even have been pulled over because they were holding their hand next to their ear, raising the suspicions of a passing officer, and it turned out that they actually were just holding their hand, not a phone, next to their ear, he said.

An average of about 100 tickets a month are issued for cell-phone violations in Sonoma County, he said.

A cell phone ticket isn’t cheap. The first ticket costs $20 and subsequent tickets are $50, but that’s just the base fine. After all of the various court, state and county fees are tacked on, that first ticket costs $142 and subsequent tickets $256. CLICK HERE to read how ticket costs really work.