Pacific Grove Police will be actively ticketing drivers who text and drivers holding cell phones
As part of April’s Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Pacific Grove Police Department will actively ticket those texting or operating hand-held cell phones on April 3, 2013. Drivers who break the law and place themselves and others in danger will be cited with no warnings. The current minimum ticket cost is $159, with subsequent tickets costing at least $279. Last April, more than 57,000 tickets were written statewide for texting and hand-held cell use, There were nearly 450,000 convictions over the year 2012. Whether it’s a ticket or a crash, as the campaign theme states, “It’s Not Worth It!”
Distracted driving is a serious safety concern that puts everyone on the road at risk. In recent years, hundreds have been killed and thousands seriously injured in California as a result of collisions that involved at least one driver who was distracted. Nationally, an estimated 3,331 died in 2011. As a result, law enforcement across the state, including Pacific Grove Police department, are increasingly cracking down on cell phone use and texting. This April will see more than 225 local agencies plus the California Highway Patrol conducting zero tolerance enforcements.
Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. Young, inexperienced drivers under 20 years old have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes. In addition, studies show that texting while driving can delay a driver’s reaction tim just as severely as having a blood alcohol content of a legally drunk driver.
Studies also show that there is no difference in the risks between hands-free and hand-held cell phone conversation, both of which can result in “inattention blindness: which occurs when the brain isn’t seeing what is clearly visible because the drivers focus on the phone conversation and not on the road. When over one third of your brain’s functioning that ought to be concentrating on your driving gets moved over to cell phone talking, you can become a cell phone “zombie.”
To avoid a distracted driving ticket or a crash, Pacific Grove Police Department offers drivers the following tips:
• Turn off your phone and/or put it out of reach while driving.
• Include in your outgoing message that you can’t answer while you are driving.
• Don’ call or text anyone at a time when you think they may be driving.
