Police addressing growing distracted driving problem
Dana Molina, Multimedia Journalist/Telemundo Anchor, dana.molina@krdo.com
POSTED: 08:26 PM MDT Aug 06, 2015
Distracted driving becoming bigger problem in the Springs COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -
Motor vehicle deaths and distracted driving are on the rise in Colorado Springs, and police are addressing the problems.
Between 2010 and 2014, motor vehicle fatalities rose by 21.4 percent, the Colorado Springs Police Department said.
According to its data, of the total 10,289 crashes in the city in 2014, there was a human contributing factor in 4,612 or 44 percent of them. The most common contributing factor was distracted driving.
"These vehicles are thousands of pounds and they're a deadly weapon when you're not operating them in a correct manner," Officer Will Sunday said.
Sunday has participated in some of the deployments CSPD has had this year. The department has been deploying several officers to specific top-accident locations in the city to monitor traffic violations, focusing on distracted driving.
"We're looking for those drivers who are using their cellphones, not paying attention, weaving in and out of traffic, just overall being distracted," Sunday said.
The deployments are part of CSPD's efforts to address distracted driving. The department received a grant to address the problem through education and enforcement. In addition to deployments, officers are working with Drive Smart Colorado to educate young people.
So far, the efforts have worked. In the first 23 weeks of 2015, there was a 1.8 percent reduction in the number of distracted driving-related injury accidents and zero distracted driving-related deadly accidents.
"There's distractions all over our life," Sunday said. "When you have things that bring your eyes off your driving, that's when we have issues."