CHP: Crackdown On Cell Phone Texting and Talking While Driving

April 1st starts the month long zero tolerance campaign “It’s Not Worth It!” to highlight the fact that drivers who text and use cell phones while driving have the same driving behavior as those who are legally drunk. South Lake Tahoe California Highway Patrol officers will join others from around the state in an effort to curb these behaviors in order to reduce preventable accidents with injuries.

During the month of April, there will be an enforcement emphasis on U.S. Hwy 50 and I-80 to concentrate on distracted drivers, including four special high visibility enforcement operations to cite cell phone/texting violators.

The increased enforcement and education aims to persuade drivers to recognize the dangers of distracted driving and reduce the number of people impacted by this perilous behavior. The “It’s Not Worth It!” theme emphasizes that a phone call or text isn’t worth a hefty fine or a collision. The current minimum ticket cost is $161, with subsequent tickets costing at least $281.

“We take the issue of distracted driving very seriously,” said CHP South Lake Tahoe Commander Chris Lane. “During this enforcement campaign and with the help of Caltrans and their changeable message signs, the Department of Motor Vehicles, educators, and programs like Impact Teen Drivers, Start Smart and public service announcements, all made possible by grants from the Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; we can get the message out that distracted driving is destructive driving.”

Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. In addition, studies show that texting while driving can delay a driver’s reaction time just as severely as having a blood alcohol content of a legally drunk driver. According to research, sending or receiving a text takes a driver's eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds. Even a three second glance at freeway speeds means a driver has traveled the distance of a football field.

Research shows that there is no difference in the risks between hands-free and hand-held cell phone conversations, both of which can result in “inattention blindness” which occurs when the brain isn’t seeing what is clearly visible because the drivers’ focus is on the phone conversation and not on the road. When over one third of your brain’s functioning that should be on your driving moves over to cell phone talking, you can become a cell phone “zombie.”