Police Crack Down on Distracted Driving

If you are one of those drivers who use your phone while driving, Sonoma police have a message for you:  Don't do it.

Until April 8, the department is deploying traffic officers to target distracted driving violations as part of its "zero tolerance" policy toward drivers who text or operate hand-held cell phones. People caught yapping on their hand-held mobile devices while behind the wheel will be slapped with a $159 ticket, if it's the first citation, and $279 for all subsequent ones. 

The crackdown on distracted driving is part of a statewide push by police to drive home the message that texting and driving don't go hand in hand. In fact, more than 225 local agencies along with 103 CHP area commands throughout California will conduct special enforcement actions this month.

According to police, drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. Younger, inexperienced drivers under 20 years old have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes. 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. 

Driving and talking on the phone is dangerous even when using a hands-free phone because the brain isn’t seeing what is clearly visible because the drivers’ focus is on the phone conversation and not on the road, police say.