We recently brought you word of the California Highway Patrol’s efforts to root out distracted driving in the Santa Cruz area, and now we’re also getting a sense of how successful an anti-distracted driving campaign has been in Los Angeles County.
From April 1 through April 7, a whopping 2,183 citations were issued to distracted drivers, with the majority of those tickets being assessed against persons who were talking on their cellphones. 1,757 drivers were cited for indulging in that habit, whereas texting at the wheel accounted for 284 tickets. The disparity might have something to do with difficulties proving the latter offense occurred.
Cellphone-related violations weren’t the only activities that warranted a traffic stop. 142 tickets were handed out to people taking part in such activities as makeup application, shaving, and simply taking attention off the road to focus on something in the cab. Clearly, it’s not just cellphones that are drawing the scrutiny of officers.
To give you some idea of how prevalent distraction is and how successful this year’s campaign has been thus far, the same time period last year only resulted in 465 cellphone driving citations, less than a fifth of the citations issued this week.
With Distracted Driving Awareness Month still in full swing, it’s up to drivers to recognize both the dangers of cellphone usage and the likelihood of being pulled over. Full attention shouldn’t just be given to the road solely in April, but at all times of the year.