As a red Ford F-250 hauling a 22-foot Alumaweld boat was headed north on Interstate 5 Sunday afternoon, the driver appeared to be focused on something other than the hefty, accelerating machinery. He also held a cellphone to his ear.
Washington State Patrol Trooper Jeffrey Heath pulled the man over. The driver admitted to speaking on the phone after forgetting his Bluetooth device — a $136 mistake.
More than 150 law enforcement agencies in the state, including local ones, have added extra patrols looking for distracted driving since March 28 and through April 14. In WSP District 5 — which covers Clark, Cowlitz, Lewis, Klickitat, and Skamania Counties — about 20 troopers have been engaged in the patrols, Heath said. Over a typical 10-hour shift, troopers may encounter 10 to 20 distracted drivers, he said.
In 2017, Washington passed stricter distracted driving laws. Last year, handheld cellphone use was down 40 percent from 2017, according to a November 2018 Washington State Traffic Safety Commission observational study. While Clark County saw a slight uptick in 2018 with a 6.5 percent distracted driving rate, the figure is one of the lowest in the state, according to the study.
“If you’re distracted, law enforcement is focused on finding and ticketing you,” Traffic Safety Commission Target Zero Manager Hilary Torres said in a news release. “Fortunately, there are signs that Washington drivers are increasingly taking safety into their own hands, by keeping their hands off their phones.”
‘Dangerously distracted’
But other types of distraction — like eating, tuning a radio or attending to pets or children — increased significantly statewide, according to the study.
“Drivers can dangerously lose their focus on other activities that shift their focus and full engagement from driving, which state law calls ‘dangerously distracted,'” Torres said. “Any type of distraction increases crash risk. Studies show that it can take nearly 30 seconds to regain your attention on the road after focusing on something else, even for just a few seconds.”
First offenders, like the man on I-5 Sunday, are subject to a $136 fine, while second violations can lead to a $234 penalty. After obtaining the driver’s insurance information, Heath returned to his patrol car to, in part, check if he had any similar previous violations.
“If you’re on your phone, I’ll give you a ticket,” Heath said.
But it’s not just about issuing tickets, Heath said. After pulling over a man driving a blue pickup truck with a cracked windshield Sunday, Heath gave the man a warning. In the middle of the stop, the man received a call on a hands-free Bluetooth device.
“You can go ahead and answer that if you’d like,” Heath told the man.
When it comes to other types of distracted driving, Heath said he may take a more nuanced approach. As he was patrolling I-5, Interstate 205 and state Highway 14 — what he calls “the triangle” — Heath passed a number of cars and turned his head to check on the drivers.
Some distracted driving behaviors, such as eating food from a center console, are hard to spot. If it appears a driver may be distracted and is erratic — following too closely, drifting, fluctuating speeds — Heath will pull them over and have a conversation, sometimes, in lieu of a ticket, he said.
“Education is a big part of it,” Heath said. “It’s the least amount of enforcement to gain compliance.”
Heath compared behaviors of distracted drivers to those of impaired ones. Staring at a phone for 5 seconds can be the equivalent of driving the length of a football field while blindfolded, Heath said.
“If you put that in perspective, that’s a long way,” Heath said.
