GILBERT

Gilbert campaign targets distracted driving

Jim Walsh
The Republic | azcentral.com
For the ninth consecutive year,a Tuscon state senator's quest to ban text messaging while driving has failed.

Gilbert police plan to stop far more drivers over the next three months than they do now.

Their focus will be on preventing wrecks caused by distracted driving, like the death of Chandler police Officer Bryant Holmes, who was on his way to work in October when a distracted driver in Gilbert ran a red light and plowed into Holmes' motorcycle, killing him.

Patrol officers have a goal of increasing traffic stops by 20 percent throughout the town during the enforcement period but Gilbert Police Chief Tim Dorn said his objective is to change driver behavior.

Dorn said he expects officers will issue more warnings than tickets: historically, 43 percent of traffic stops lead to citations.

The ramped-up enforcement campaign runs from July through September and police administrators plan to evaluate its success afterward to see if the effort should continue. The crackdown runs in tandem with a public-safety campaign sponsored by the town with the slogan Speed Down, Eyes Up, Drive Safely.

The campaign includes two high-enforcement zones- along the SanTan Freeway corridor between Val Vista and Williams Field Roads and along the Val Vista corridor between Baseline and Elliot Roads- where traffic officers will target obvious signs of distracted driving and other violations.

Two LED signs in the high-enforcement zones flash messages with the slogan.

Dorn suggested the integrated campaign after making the next-of-kin notification when Holmes died and noting a sharp increase in traffic fatalities. While the statistics are miniscule compared to other municipalities, Gilbert has recorded 10 fatalities so far this year, compared to seven all of last year, which is about the town's usual number.

"The big message I need to get out is: This is a problem we need to work on together," Dorn said.

The best solution, Dorn said, is for people to voluntarily police themselves while they're behind the wheel by avoiding cell phones and other distractions, including eating and applying make up or sun screen.

"If we can do that, we can have a significant impact on preventing collisions," Dorn said.

Gilbert Mayor John Lewis said Gilbert residents are proud of their town's ranking as the second safest city nationally with more than 100,000 people. He said he is hopeful that they will realize that all the police department is attempting to do is to protect them.

"We want to keep it that way. We want to prevent these fatal collisions,'' Lewis said.

Holmes, 34, left behind his widow, Stephanie, and four children less than 10 years old.

The other driver, 20-year-old Austin Beasley, paid a civil traffic fine of $1,014 for causing an accident resulting in serious injury or death.

Police and prosecutors were unable to seek more serious charges against Beasley because police found no evidence of speeding or impairment, but both accounts provided by Beasley to police represent examples of distracted driving.

One version had Beasley reaching for some coins on the floor to buy a soda later at a convenience store, police said. A second version had Beasley reaching for some coins, dropping his cell phone, then reaching for the cell phone before he struck Holmes in the intersection of Baseline and Recker roads, according to investigators.

Gilbert police will be focusing on distracted driving without the benefit of a state distracted driving law. Arizona and Montana are the only two states without a texting while driving law, although Arizona bans texting by school bus drivers. Phoenix, Tucson and Coconino County all have ordinances banning texting while driving. Various bills banning texting while driving have been introduced in the Arizona legislature since 2007 by Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, but they have been blocked by one of the state's most powerful men, Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert.

RELATED:Arizona among most lax for highway-safety laws

Biggs has argued that such a law is unnecessary because police can enforce other traffic violations that are symptoms of distracted driving. Dorn said that's exactly what his officers are expected to do. These violations include failure to maintain a lane, swerving into a bicycle lane, speeding, following too closely and making wide turns.

"While a new law might help, we don't necessarily need a new law," Dorn said. "We don't have a law specifically, but we have violations stemming from distracted driving."

Dorn said it is very important to couple the enforcement campaign with the public-safety campaign to change driver behavior.

Even if a text messaging bill were passed, it would be hard to enforce because it is difficult for officers to look inside a car and see what someone is doing with their cell phone, Dorn said. Police also would need to subpoena telephone records, a time consuming process.

Toby Ehrler, of the Phoenix police traffic education safety unit, said he has written only one citation for texting while driving, which came after he looked inside a car and saw someone doing it.

But Ehrler said he has often made traffic stops and used the Phoenix law as an educational tool. He said officers often start clicking through a checklist in their heads and turn to distracted driving as a cause of bad driving behavior when a driver is not otherwise impaired. Drivers often will confess to officers that they were texting or talking on a cell phone.

"Sometimes, an educational contact is better than a ticket,'' Ehrler said, while other people will continue to drive with their knees while using their cell phone until police cite them for another traffic violation and they get fined.

"People in today's world, with social media, have fallen victim to technology,'' he said. "The average person who is just talking on the phone, they are so distracted its the equivalent of a .05 percent blood alcohol level.''

In Arizona, drivers are presumed under the influence at a blood alcohol level of .08 percent or more. Ehrler said a person who texts while driving typically takes their eyes off the road for about 420 feet, a frightening distance when it comes to traffic safety.

"Their violations are very consistent with those of an impaired driver,'' he said.

A distracted driver will often realize that they have hit a curb or veered into another lane, then quickly attempt to correct their error, Ehrler said.

During an informal Gilbert police survey in November and December of last year, traffic officers noted that at least 162 drivers from a group of more than 1,250 observed drivers appeared distracted for one reason or another.

Dorn said it is mistake to just look at the fatalities to measure the impact of distracted driving, with many families altered forever and many other victims suffering serious injuries.

In one such instance, an elderly man was walking down a sidewalk in Gilbert a few month ago when a young woman who was texting plowed into the vehicle in front of her. That second vehicle went up onto the sidewalk and struck the man, who has been in a coma for months and likely will not survive, Dorn said.