St. George
Police Department
200 East 265 North
St. George, UT 84770
(435) 627-4301
Fax:(435) 627-4375
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Traffic  -  Distracted driving is dangerous
It started with an example: "I was at an intersection and saw a young lady with a green light that didn't go. There was a car waiting for her so that it could turn left. Another car was behind her waiting for her to go, and then I saw the reason she didn't go: she had a cellphone to her ear and was so involved in the conversation that she didn't realize the light was green. She impacted two other drivers with her phone conversation." Then he asked me "Is there a cell phone law?" And I reply "No, there isn't." This is one of the less dramatic examples. I was pushed over a lane by the truck slightly in front of me to my right as we came around the corner from Sunset onto Bluff street. The guy was having an animated conversation and swerved into my lane almost striking my police car.



You have all seen the examples, or have been the example. The drivers range from young to old and are both male and female.
When talk about a cellphone law comes up, it invariably has some of these comments: "I can talk and drive at the same time without being a hazard" or Athere shouldn't be a law that regulates what I do in my car" and "they need to single out the drivers that are the problem and not hit us all with another law." And the one I like the best is "I have a hands-free head set for my cell phone so that I can keep both hands on the wheel. It makes me a safer driver."



The problem isn't that one hand is busy with the cell phone. The problem is that our brain is somewhere else. It's in the meeting that we are missing, having the argument with our spouse or ordering the pizza and deciding which special to take home to the kids. Our attention is diverted from driving to whatever else we are concentrating on. This applies not only to the cell phone, but to anything else we may be doing or concentrating on at the time of the crash. And there will eventually be one, unless something changes.



Police have taken reports at crash scenes with excuses for inattention such as adjusting the stereo, feeding the kids a burger, looking back to make sure the ________ was OK (fill in the blank with your favorite object, we've heard them all), and even to a lady that reached over to pick up her lasagna that had fallen on the floor.



The bottom line is this: driving is dangerous. We need to focus our whole attention on the task at hand: that of piloting a 3500 pound object capable of inflicting death or serious bodily injury on those around us safely down the road. And we need our brain and all our faculties to do it. I heard on the radio last week that a teenager on the cell phone has the reaction time of an average 70 year old person.



Doesn't drinking slow the reaction time and affect our decision making abilities? This is why we have divided attention tests to determine whether or not a person is driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Driving under the influence of a cell phone is almost as bad.



We need your help. Please pull over if you find that your attention needs to be another place. Devote all your attention to that task, then get your brain back in the car and drive. We will all be safer for it.




Craig Harding

Public Information Officer

St. George Police Department





















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