Suisun City Police Warn About Distracted Driving

From the Suisun City Police Department:

The California Office of Traffic Safety and the Suisun City Police Department are recognizing April 2011 as Distracted Driving Awareness Month.  Distracted driving is defined as anything that takes your eyes or mind off the road, or your hands off the steering wheel.

Facts:

• “Distraction” is a specific type of inattention that occurs when drivers divert their attention from the driving task to focus on some other activity instead.

• The No. 1 source of driver inattention is use of a wireless device.

• Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.

• Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent.

• Using a cell phone while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent.

• Up to 6,000 people nationwide are killed in crashes where driver distractions are involved.

• Texting takes your eyes off the road for an average of five seconds, long enough to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph. Most crashes happen with less than 3 seconds reaction time.

What can you do?

1. Never text and talk on your cell phone while operating a motor vehicle.
2. Turn off your phone when you get behind the wheel.
3. Don’t text or call someone when you know they are likely to be driving.
4. Don’t program your GPS, MP3 player or other devices while driving.

Please note:

The fine for a first time texting or hand-held cell phone violation is $159, with, subsequent tickets costing $279.  Law Enforcement will be taking a zero tolerance stance in enforcing distracted driving laws.