Police in Marietta, Atlanta applied a clever strategy to bust more than 100 drivers that were breaking the regulations set forth by the Georgia Hands-Free Law that took effect on July 1, 2018, reported WPXI.
Heads up! Check out what Marietta police are doing: https://t.co/8PiW6wj3vt
— SMART Safety Group (@SMARTSafetyTeam) June 20, 2019
According to the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, two of the new rules are:
“Drivers cannot have a phone in their hand or touching any part of their body while talking on their phone while driving,” and “Even with hands-free technology, drivers cannot write, read or send text messages, e-mails, social media content and other internet data while on the road. (Voice to text is allowed).”
Three police officers wore utility worker’s attire and spread out in an intersection near the so-called “Big Chicken” landmark.
They watched for drivers breaking the hands-free law and seat belt rules. As soon as they discovered the lawbreakers, the undercover police communicated the violator’s car description to officers in motorized vehicles waiting in parking lots. The latter would then pull over the perpetrators.
We need to stop distracted driving to save lives! I pull off the road to use the internet or make a call. https://t.co/GDPXti4kai
— Tony Whalen (@ResComTony) June 19, 2019
The strategic move was a cooperation of Marietta police, Cobb County Police Department, and Georgia State Patrol. The authorities said that the operation began at around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday and ended at about 11:45 a.m.
“People assume that if they are not getting pulled over for this law that it’s still OK to slip back into that habit of using their phone while they are driving,” Chuck McPhilamy, spokesman for Marietta police, told WPXI. “We’re asking the public to realize that the law is in effect for a reason. It’s there to protect you from an accident as well as save lives.”
According to Mcphilamy, in the 15 states that put in effect similar laws, two years after, a respective decrease of 16 percent in traffic accidents was seen to take place.
Sgt. Wayne Delk, a spokesman with Cobb County police, told WPXI that the maneuver served as a reminder that the aforementioned laws are still in effect and to decrease accidents resulted from distracted driving.
“This is just one concerted effort to remind people that the law exists for a reason and we do want people to be safe,” he said. “We are as law enforcement officers are bound to enforce the law. This is not something we pick and choose.”
Wait…what?: Cops pose as utility workers to catch distracted drivers in metro Atlanta. Read more here: https://on-ajc.com/2WTyLIW
AJC စာစုတင်ရာတွင် အသုံးပြုမှု ၂၀၁၉၊ ဇွန် ၁၉၊ ဗုဒ္ဓဟူးနေ့
Woman Loses Baby in Texting and Driving Accident
This should make you think twice about sending a text while driving.
In April 2011, a woman named Aimee Eckert was driving down an Alabama road on a seemingly normal day when a car hit her head-on. The driver in the other vehicle was texting on her phone.
Aimee was pregnant with a boy, but she lost the child. “I was six months pregnant with a boy named Gabriel,” Eckert recalled to WLWT.
“They say she was going about 75,” she told another local news station. Now, Aimee has metal in every limb and had to get surgery on her heart. She also had her leg amputated at the knee.
But she said that losing her unborn child is the worst thing of all.
“I never got to touch him,” she said. “I always feel the loss.”
Aimee said that regarding texting and driving, “It’s just not worth it.”
According to WLWT, nearly every bone in her body was broken.
“The only thing that wasn’t broken was my neck and my back,” she said. “I had facial fractures, both collar bones, just about all my ribs, both hips, pubic bone, both legs, both arms.”
PADD, People Against Distracted Driving စာစုတင်ရာတွင် အသုံးပြုမှု ၂၀၁၆၊ ဧပြီ ၂၊ စနေနေ့
She said that her prosthetic leg is her strength to go on despite losing her child.
“To go through that much trauma, to die three times, I mean, there’s a reason I’m still here. I don’t know if this is the reason, but I’ll do anything I can to help spread the message and prevent that from happening to someone else,” Eckert said.
Her message is a reminder not to text and drive.
“Distracted driving is something that is unsafe, irresponsible and in a split second, the consequences can be deadly,” said Ohio trooper Tom Bloomberg, according to WLWT. “Simple things like reaching for your soda in your center console, changing your radio stations, combing your hair, something like that. Those kind of things that people really don’t think about, they’re still the same distracted driving that can cause those serious accidents.”
Eckert now speaks at schools regarding the dangers of texting and driving.
“If I can save one person’s life for the story and what I’ve been through, it’s worth it,” she said, adding that she has a license plate that reads, “DNT TXT.”
The Epoch Times reporter Jack Philips contributed to this report
