Mountain View Participates in Statewide Campaign To Deter Distracted Drivers

Mountain View police will be on a heightened lookout for anyone texting or talking on their cellphones while driving this month. Extra officers will be on the road Monday and Tuesday.

The city's efforts are part of National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, a first-time campaign jumpstarted today by the California Highway Patrol and its traffic safety partners. The month-long campaign aims to deter drivers from losing concentration on major highways, in part by issuing tickets to those caught using cells or texting while driving.

To do its part, Mountain View will place overtime police officers on local highways these two days, said Elizabeth Wylie, public information officer for the police department. Officers will be there to write tickets to anyone driving and also texting or talking on handheld phones without a hands-free device.

For the rest of the month, police officers have been told to pay closer attention to distracted drivers.

“These campaigns are generally very effective,” said Wylie, pointing out how Mountain View police wrote more citations than any other city in the county last August for “Cell Phone Zero Tolerance Days.”

Those caught for the first time face a minimum violation of $159, with subsequent violations set at $279.

On Aug. 10, during Mountain View’s last distracted driving campaign, 120 cellphone and 18 texting citations were issued in the city. On Aug. 18, the other day of the campaign, 140 cell phone and 11 texting citations were issued, bringing Mountain View to 23 percent of all citations.

The No. 1 source of distraction while driving is a cellular device, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Drivers using these devices are four times as likely to seriously injure themselves while driving.