Police Issue 5,506 More Tickets For Cell Phone Usage

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As a Seattle wrongful death attorney working at a Bellevue personal injury law firm I am strongly against people using their cell phones while driving. I see too many victims that are suffering from personal injuries or even trying to cope with the wrongful death of a loved one at the hands of a driver that was not paying attention because they were sending a text. No text message or phone call is worth another person’s life.

Last year Washington State Patrol started enforcing the new cell phone law, which made it illegal for driver to text or hold a phone up to their ear while driving. Since enforcement began, officers throughout the state of Washington have given out 6,850 tickets to people using their cell phone while driving, which is a huge amount compared with the 1,344 in total they gave out the previous year. The law that took effect in June of 2010 made cell phone use a primary offense, meaning that a police officer did not need any other reason to pull a person over if they were using their phone.

Unfortunately I just don’t think that the penalties are tough enough when it comes to cell phone usage in the car. Texting while driving can actually impair your ability to as much as an intoxicated person with a BAC of .08%. Cell phone usage while driving causes hundreds of auto accidents every year that caused over 448,000 personal injuries and 995 wrongful deaths in 2009. After seeing the drastic increase in tickets due to cell phone usage, I think that Washington State lawmakers need to increase the penalties for texting and talking while driving to something closer to what you would get for a DUI. Texting while driving has proven itself to be just as deadly as drunk driving and needs to be treated as such.