April is Distracted Driving Awareness month, and our local law enforcement agencies are doing their part to reduce the number of distracted drivers on our roads. I talked with Bellingham Police Traffic Sergeant Carr Lanham about how and why this emphasis patrol is so important. Here’s what he said:
After this day’s emphasis patrol wrapped up, I got a phone call from a deputy who participated in the emphasis to let me know about the results. He estimated that during the four-hour patrol, officers stopped between 60 and 80 drivers for distracted driving violations, including one man who knew right away why he was being stopped. In fact, his wife said that they knew about the emphasis patrol because they had read about it on Facebook. He chose to ignore the notice because, as he said, he had never seen anyone actually get pulled over for talking on their phone. Now he has.