EVERETT — Texting while driving is not just a practice of the young on the state’s highways.
An analysis of the 2,261 traffic stops in which the Washington State Patrol has issued tickets or warnings through July of this year finds more than half of the violators are over the age of 30.
They’ve ranged in age from 16 to 81.
Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste believes the problem of texting drivers, as well as those distracted by holding cell phones to their ears, is getting worse.
“We are just glued to these things as a society,” he said. “But it’s a cocktail mix that just doesn’t go together. Period.”
It happens with increasing frequency, according to national studies.
At any given moment during the day, roughly 660,000 drivers across the country are using hand-held cell phones or manipulating electronic devices on roadways, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study.
One survey estimates that more than 100 million Americans answer cellphone calls while driving, and 50 million place calls.
The State Patrol has been pulling over drivers on cellphones with greater frequency.
Through July, it has given tickets to 5,942 drivers talking on cellphones — a pace that’s expected to exceed the 7,963 last year.
Tickets for texting drivers also are on the rise. Through July, 1,075 tickets had been handed out. That exceeds the total for 2012.
A Texas A&M Transportation Institute study found that texting doubles drivers’ reaction times and makes them more likely to miss flashing lights.
“Our frustration is that we think there are many, many more collisions caused by texting than we will ever know,” said Bob Calkins, a State Patrol spokesman. “If it’s a simple rear-end collision, for example, we can’t look at the driver’s cell phone.”
Following too close is an infraction and not a crime. That means troopers can’t get a search warrant.
They can, however, seize a cellphone as evidence in vehicular assault and homicide cases.
In Washington, using a hand-held cellphone, or texting while driving, each carry $124 fines. Neither offense becomes part of the driver’s record. Nor are the infractions reported to insurance companies.
Batiste recalled a traffic stop he made a couple of years ago on I-5 in Pierce County. He watched a 60-foot long, 18-wheel truck weaving across the freeway lanes. When he pulled the truck over, the driver explained he was texting his wife who was telling him he shouldn’t be texting. Batiste hopes state lawmakers will consider toughening tlaw.
“I think we need to explore all different options,” he said.
That could include looking to New York where, under a new law taking effect Nov. 1, drivers under 18 years old caught texting could have their licenses suspended for four months for a first offense, and a year for a second offense.
Texting also is prevalent on city streets and county roads, local officials said.
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office last week reported that a texting teen hit a 63-year-old woman who was walking in the 17200 block of McRae Road in the north county. The woman was taken to a local hospital for her injuries.
The teen “did admit to the officer on scene she had been texting,” sheriff’s office spokeswoman Shari Ireton said. “She clipped her with her vehicle mirror. It’s fortunate it wasn’t worse,”
Everett police Sgt. Ken Dorn heads up his department’s traffic division. He sees increasing numbers of drivers distracted by their hand-held technology.
When he pulls someone over for texting or with a cellphone to their ear, they invariably acknowledge that they knew what they were doing was against the law, he said.
As a demographic, “they are working-class, middle-class people,” he said.
Among the drivers pulled over for texting by the State Patrol through July, roughly 85 percent were between 20 and 49 years old. Teens accounted for less than 3 percent.
Men were stopped 53 percent of the time.
Dorn said police are only able to pull over a fraction of the violators, even when they have their suspicions.
“I can’t tell you how many times when that head goes down and their eyes go down to the lap you know in your heart they are texting, but you have to see it,” he said. “You know it’s happening, but you don’t have what you need to make contact.”
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com
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