During the state’s first Distracted Driving Awareness Week, Lake County authorities are working toward making cellphone use while driving a thing of the past.
Sponsored by the National Safety Council, the week finds law enforcement agencies throughout the county and state watching out for distracted drivers.
“Over 40 citations have been issued thus far for distracted driving violations,” Lake County Sheriff Sgt. Christopher Covelli said on Thursday, noting that the campaign began on Monday. “Our sheriff’s deputies stop and ticket those they see violating distracted driving laws.”
Although the campaign officially was scheduled to end on Friday, Covelli said deputies will continue to watch for violations.
Also, Covelli added, the sheriff’s social media posts and website have “helped significantly.” People are sharing Facebook posts, and the sheriff’s website, http://www.lakecountyil.gov/Sheriff, is experiencing more visitors, he said, adding that this educational component of the campaign is helping raise awareness of the “downright dangerous” situations that distracted driving causes.
Fatalities caused by distracted driving rose 9 percent in 2015 over the previous year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“Texting while driving has become an especially problematic trend among millennials,” Lake Forest Police Department officials said in a statement. “Young drivers, 16 to 24 years old, have been observed using handheld electronic devices while driving at higher rates than older drivers since 2007.”
Waukegan Police Department Cmdr. Joseph Florip said driving while using cellphones is like “seat belts of the past” — it used to be that kids would all pile into the station wagon and nobody wore seat belts. He added that over time, with laws and enforcement, seat belts and child car seats are now required.
“There is a trend toward distracted driving becoming unacceptable, and we are moving toward that way very slowly,” Florip said.
There is a double standard, however, in that while more than eight in 10 drivers believed it completely unacceptable for motorists to text or email while driving, more than a third admitted they read texts while driving, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
“Mental distractions can last up to 27 seconds after using voice commands on cars and phones to make a call, send a text or change the music,” according to information posted at https://www.aaafoundation.org.
The foundation ranked the voice-activated systems in vehicles and smartphones when using voice commands to make calls or change music while driving. The study included 2015 model year vehicles.
Though none of the 13 systems analyzed met the lowest “mild distraction” category, three were considered “moderate distraction.” The best were Chevy Equinox and Buick Lacrosse equally, followed by Toyota 4Runner
In the “high distraction” category, ranked from best to worst, the list of systems included Google Now, Ford Taurus, Chevy Malibu, Apple Siri, VW Passat, Nissan Altima, Chrysler 200c, Hyundai Sonata, and Microsoft Cortana. The Mazda 6 had the worst rank with “very high distraction.”
The Lake County Sheriff released National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics that showed 3,477 people were killed and an estimated 391,000 injured in crashes during 2015 involving distracted driving. Ten percent of fatal crashes, 15 percent of injury crashes and 14 percent of all police-reported crashes in 2015 involved distracted driving, the report stated.
Although distracted driving is considered any nondriving activity, including eating and applying makeup, “texting is the most alarming,” according to a Gurnee Police Department statement, which warned motorists that texting takes eyes off the road, hands off the wheel, and minds off driving.
As part of the Distracted Driving Awareness Week, a short, Distracted Driving Online Course is offered free during a limited time at http://www.iddaw.org.
Erin Gallagher is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
