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Health & Fitness

It's NOT Worth It

Daly City Police Crack Down on Distracted Driving

As part of April's Distracted Driving Awareness Month campaign, the Daly City Police Department will be actively ticketing those texting or operating hand-held cell phones. During certain days of this month, the Daly City Police will be conducting special high visibility enforcement operations to cite cell phone violators and those who are driving while distracted. Drivers who break the law and place themselves and others in danger will be cited with no warnings. The current minimum ticket cost is $161, with subsequent tickets costing at least $281.

Distracted driving is a serious traffic safety concern that puts everyone on the road at risk. In recent years, hundreds have been killed and thousands seriously injured in California as a result of collisions that involved at least one driver who was distracted. Because of this, law enforcement across the state is increasingly cracking down on cell phone use and texting. This April, there will be over 225 local agencies plus the CHP conducting zero tolerance enforcements.

"We all know that talking on our cell phones while driving is distracting, but that doesn't stop some people from continuing to do it," said Daly City Police Chief Manny Martinez. "This effort is intended to educate our community about the dangers of cell phone use while driving. We hope that once people see the statistics and realize the danger involved, they will change their driving habits to help protect themselves, their families, and others on the road."

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. According to research, texting while driving can delay a driver’s reaction time just severely as having a blood alcohol content of a legally drunk driver.

Studies also show that there is no difference in the risks between hands-free and hand-held cell phone conversations, both of which can result in "inattention blindness", which occurs when the brain isn't seeing what is clearly visible because the drivers' focus is on the phone conversation and not on the road. When over one third of your brain is functioning that should be on your driving moves over to cell phone talking, you can become a "cell phone zombie".

Address/Location
Daly City Police Department
333 90th St
Daly City, CA 94015

Contact
Emergency: 9-1-1
Non-emergencies: 650-991-8119 

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