Distracted Driving Enforcement
Distracted driving – i.e. texting while driving – has become a major problem that has led to serious, and sometimes deadly, accidents. Enforcing the distracted driving laws has always been difficult under the current language of the law because it requires proof that the driver was using the phone in an illegal way, which can be more challenging than one might suspect because of the many legal ways a driver can use their phone – at least currently.
To combat this, local cities and counties are going to great lengths to enforce the distracted driving laws. For instance, law enforcement agencies are planting cops in unusual places for the primary purpose of ticketing individuals for using their cell phones illegally. Some of the tricks being employed are:
- Having cops, in uniform, standing in a boom truck high above an intersection, as if the cop was working on a light;
- Having cops, in uniform, patrol from inside an empty school bus, giving them a clear line of sight down into the driver’s seat;
- Cops will even just roll up to the vehicle on bikes, catching drivers in the act as they sit at a light.
These efforts have proven to be wildly successful by leading to dozens of citations over a single four-hour enforcement schedule. With distracted driving being a factor in one out of every five accidents, it’s easy to understand why law enforcement will go to such lengths to enforce the distracted driving laws – and why the law is becoming more restrictive in August 2019.