Traffic - Distracted Driving
Our traffic division is tasked with reducing crashes in St. George. We target specific areas of town during those times when crashes tend to happen. The areas that we are focusing on are South River Road, St. George Boulevard and Bluff Street. There is a jump in the number of crashes between 8 and 9 am and then another increase about 11 am until just after 6 pm.
We also focus on the causes of these crashes. Three main contributors are following too close, failing to yield and improper turning. Distracted driving is an underlying cause of these types of crashes. We follow another car down the road and suddenly (to us, anyway) they slow or stop in front of us and we cannot stop in time before the crash occurs. The fact that we are talking on the cell phone, changing the radio station, eating or feeding the kids provides the distraction, taking our attention away just long enough to cause us to miss what the other driver is doing. It appears sudden to us, but this scenario is set up by the fact that we going too fast or are too close to the car in front of us, and when our attention is diverted just for a second, they slow or stop and we find ourselves unable to take the required evasive action and we crash.
There was recently a law passed dealing with careless driving. It states that if a person operating a motor vehicle a) commits two or more moving traffic violations, or b) commits a moving violation other than speeding while being distracted by one or more activities taking place within the vehicle that are not related to the operation of the vehicle including using a cell phone or other electronic device (unless using hands-free talking and listening features), searching for items in the vehicle, or attending to personal grooming or hygiene, they are guilty of careless driving.
Two ladies got involved in a crash when a cookie fell on the floor. Both looked at the cookie, the car crashed, the driver was killed and the passenger ended up in ICU. A young man tried to put a CD in the player and rear-ended the car in front of him. A young lady driving with her father in the car ran a red light as she was touching up her eye liner. She didn’t even see the red light.
The very task of driving divides the attention of the driver. We have to see bicycles, pedestrians and other vehicles coming from every direction, signal, regulate our speed, back off, speed up, brake for red lights and if that isn’t enough, we add carrying on a conversation on the phone, passing out the french fries and burgers and putting on our makeup, and expect ourselves to do all this without getting in a crash!
Law enforcement is not exempt from these distractions. We also have radios and computers to answer calls for service. We send our officers to additional training in pursuit and emergency vehicle operations in an effort to make them better able to handle the demands placed upon them as they drive our streets, doing the job that we have asked them to do. We’ve had our share of the associated crashes.
We feel so strongly about careless driving and the crashes that careless driving causes that we made it a matter of policy that our officers do not engage in telephone conversations or use their laptops while their police vehicle is in motion, except for emergency situations. We are also taking a very strong approach to enforcement of this law as we encounter violations on the street. Please help us by focusing more on the task of driving. If you can’t remember the last few blocks, do a reality check. If the phone rings, pull over. If something falls, leave it there, it’s already down. Help us make our streets safer. Let’s all focus more on the tasks involved in the potentially dangerous activity that we call driving.
Sgt. Craig Harding |
