With a cellphone in his hand, Michael Price punched in GPS coordinates while sitting at a traffic light in Minnetonka on Wednesday, unaware that the eyes of the law were watching from the car right beside.
"I should not be doing it," said an apologetic Price, 25, after being stopped and given a warning by Sgt. Rick Dennison of West Hennepin Public Safety. "It's easy to do. Hard not to."
Starting Monday and running through April 30, police across the state will be extra vigilant in watching for motorists like Price who succumb to the temptation to illegally use their phones to text, read or send e-mail, or to access the internet while in traffic — including while sitting at a stoplight. The three-week enforcement period will be the longest put on by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) since the annual April crackdowns on distracted driving began in 2010.
April has been designated as Distracted Driving Awareness Month by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The number of motorists who have been ticketed throughout the year for texting and driving has risen from 2,177 to 9,545 over the past six years. Distracted driving also has been a contributing factor to 45 deaths annually and 204 life-changing injuries over the same period, according to the DPS. Those numbers prompted traffic safety officials to lengthen this year's enforcement. Last year's campaign ran for two weeks.
"It's an epidemic," said Mike Hanson, who heads the DPS Office of Traffic Safety. "Drive time is not catch-up time. It's time to pay attention."
With $438,000 from the Federal Highway Administration to cover officers' overtime, law enforcement from 300 agencies will center their attention on looking for motorists who are not focused on driving. On April 11, police will saturate crash-prone Hwy. 12 from Minneapolis to the South Dakota border as part of the crackdown.
While cellphones most often are what hijack a driver's attention, distracting behaviors can include everything from brushing teeth to reading the newspaper and even reaching for a coffee mug, activities that are legal but can lead to trouble.