DEERFIELD -- One hand or two?

That is the center of a dispute between an Amherst man and the Deerfield Police Department over a recent moving violation on Route 116.

Kyle Wright, 22, was issued a citation May 4 for impeded operation. That's an all-encompassing legal term for anything that interferes with a driver's ability to operate a car. It covers texting, reading, operating an electric razor or having distracting objects hanging from the rearview mirror.

In Wright's case, it was a bagel with cream cheese.

Police charge that Wright was pulled over because an officer spotted him eating as he drove. Wright admits he was eating a bagel as he drove past a parked police car on his way to work.

"The cop asked if I was eating something good, and I said, 'Oh yeah. I got my bagel,'" he said in a recent interview.

Wright said he is being unfairly and arbitrarily singled out for doing what for many is part of the daily ritual: eating in the car on the way to work.

"There's an entire industry based on eating in the car," he said.

Every McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts, not to mention many other restaurants, have drive-thru windows, he said.

Deerfield Police Officer Adam Sokoloski said Wright was not pulled over for eating a bagel, but for how he was eating it.

Reading from the report filed by the officer who issued the citation, Christopher Savinski, Sokoloski said: "With both hands, he was holding what appeared to be a sandwich and the wrapper, and he had no hands on the wheel."

Sokoloski said the citation was issued because, when Savinski spotted Wright drive past him, he appeared to be more involved with his bagel than with operating his car. And that is the textbook definition of impeded operation, he said.

"The short and long of it is Mr. Wright was operating impeded," he said. "You can't have both hands on your bagel and no hands on the steering wheel."

Wright disputes what is in the report. He said he was eating with one hand, and had one hand on the steering wheel.

"It was a normal-sized bagel," he said. "I, like most people, only require one hand to eat bagels."

The penalty is $40. Wright has filed an appeal of the ticket, which cost $25.

If the ticket is upheld, the moving violation would count as a surchargeable incident by the state's Merit Rating Board. It will cost him two points on the Safe Driver Insurance Plan and likely will result in higher insurance rates when he renews his policy.

Massachusetts does not ban eating and driving, per se.

Chapter 90, Section 13, of the Massachusetts General Laws -- the specific offense listed on Wright's ticket -- says nothing about eating.

Instead, it says, in part: "No person, when operating a motor vehicle, shall permit to be on or in the vehicle or on or about his person anything which may interfere with or impede the proper operation of the vehicle."

The Registry of Motor Vehicles operators manual, which people study prior to qualifying for a driver's license, says: "Give driving your full attention. Don't be distracted while driving. Talking to passengers, adjusting a car stereo, or eating can all be dangerous."

David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police, said there is no law against eating a sandwich or drinking a nonalcoholic beverage while driving. Enforcing the impeded operation statute is a judgement call by police, he said.

"If, in the officer's judgement, the act of eating while driving is interfering with the driver's ability to safely operate the vehicle, it is indeed impeded operation," Procopi said.

It is enforced on a case-by-case basis, he said.

"If the eating was causing the driver to be distracted, or causing him to take both hands off the wheel, or to look down away from the road, we would consider that impeded operation," he said. "I have heard of motorists cited for this."

Another example, he said, would be people who allow their pets to sit on their laps while they drive. "That could be impeded operation, depending on the specific facts."

Sokoloski said the larger issue is distracted driving, which he said is "a major cause of car accidents in America."

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, between 2012 and 2016, around 16 percent of all traffic collisions in the United States and nine percent of fatal crashes involved a distracted driver.

To raise awareness of the issue, the federal agency, which is part of the Department of Transportation, has launched a "Just Drive" campaign that encourages drivers to remove all distractions and to concentrate on the road.

Sokoloski said the Deerfield police have bought into the campaign, and officers have received training on how to look for signs of distracted drivers. Primarily it is looking for signs of a driver texting or working their cellphone, but it can include other distractions, too.

The stepped-up enforcement, Sokoloski said, is intended to help educate the public about the issue, he said.

If that is the intent, then Wright said it is a lesson that has not been learned.

Since his ticket, he has continued to eat breakfast in the car on the way to work.

"Every day," he said. "And I haven't stopped since I was fined."