April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month and the California Highway Patrol is urging everyone to use this month as a reminder to stay safe on the roads.
Templeton CHP held a maximum enforcement period from April 1 through 2. KSBY is told officers issued 73 tickets in the Northern San Luis Obispo County area. Of those,29 were reportedly related to distracted driving.
“There’s really three forms of distracted driving. You have physical, which is touching something, visual when you’re looking at something, and cognitive where we're thinking about something," Templeton CHP Officer Ryan Armstrong explained. "Texting does all three of those at the same time.”
Cell phones are reported to be the most common cause of distracted driving.
Armstrong says, "It takes about five seconds to read and respond to a text, and at 55 miles per hour, that's about the length of a football field."
Officers say distracted driving is the leading cause of death among teens ages 16 to 19.
