Troopers to be unleashed on texters next month

When it became illegal to drive while texting and chatting on cell phones in 2008, plenty of motorists just kept on doing it, because police needed to see another violation to pull them over.

“They would look right at our troopers with phones held to their ears,” Washington State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste said in a bulletin Friday. “They knew that without another violation we couldn’t do anything.”

All that changes June 10, when the two major distractions for motorists become primary offenses.

And state troopers, disappointed that many drivers didn’t obey the change in law while it was a secondary violation, won’t give motorists the customary grace period this time. If they see you violating the upgraded cell-phone law, either texting or talking with the phone held to your ear, they’ll write tickets costing $124.

“Drivers have already had nearly two years to adjust their driving habits,” Batiste said. “We will fully enforce this law from day one.”

Studies have indicated that texting drivers are from six to 23 times more likely to crash.

Locally all doubt should have been removed when a texting driver killed Hudson’s Bay High School teacher Gordon Patterson as he rode his bicycle in a marked bike lane on a city street.

State Patrol officials think more accidents are caused by texting and cell-phone chatting drivers than the statistics show.

“Few drivers are going to admit they were on a cell phone, or texting, after a crash,” Batiste said. “We are choosing to take action before a collision occurs in hopes of preventing these needless tragedies.”

In interviews with The Columbian, Vancouver high-school students have said many of them text while driving, though they know it’s dangerous. Some say they have no plans to stop unless they get a ticket or are involved in a collision.

Seat-belt check

In other patrol news, a statewide seat-belt crackdown, Click It or Ticket, will run from May 24 to June 6. In this area, extra officers with the State Patrol, Clark County Sheriff’s Office and police departments in Vancouver, Battle Ground and Washougal will participate. The officers typically work overtime, paid for by grants from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

As in the past few years, the crackdowns will occur at nighttime, when the traffic death rate is four times higher, according to a bulletin from the commission.

Typically, the seat-belt stings involve an officer who stands at a busy freeway ramp and watches passing cars. The officer, upon seeing a vehicle with unbuckled drivers or passengers, radios the information to other officers, who are waiting nearby in patrol cars or on patrol motorcycles.

Research for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found that unbuckled nighttime drivers, compared with daytime drivers who wear seat belts, are three times as likely to have a felony conviction on their record, and are twice as likely to have a violent criminal record, the bulletin said.

Unbuckled nighttime drivers also are three times as likely to have a DUI conviction and twice as likely to have a negligent or reckless driving count on their record, and they have worse driving records in general, the bulletin said.

Washington still has one of the best rates of daytime seat belt use in the nation — 96.4 percent. And officials say efforts by police in enforcing seat belt use, such as the Click It or Ticket crackdowns that began in 2002, are believed to be reducing fatalities.

Unbuckled drivers’ medical bills after a collision cost about $11,000 more than those of buckled drivers, because seat belts reduce the severity of injuries, the bulletin said.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.