I’m no Metro officer, but anecdotally speaking, people are still handling their phones all too frequently while they’re driving, despite the 2012 statute that forbids it. An actual Metro officer said as much during Sunday’s monthly LVMPD-hosted Community Safety Forum at the Mob Museum, which addressed distracted driving and DUIs. He also said some other interesting things, such as …
1. Metro has seen it all, says Sergeant Peter Kisfalvi of Metro’s Traffic Bureau, who led Sunday’s “DUI and Distracted Driving” discussion. He’s caught you reading the phone in your lap—especially at night, when it illuminates your car’s entire interior—throwing it over your shoulder at first sight of a cop and even watching Real Housewives of Atlanta.
2. You want to legally operate both your car and your phone at the exact same time? Install a cell phone car mount, which allows you to reply to a text or find another Waze traffic route without holding the actual phone. But if an officer sees that you’re not focused on the road for too long, you’ll likely get stopped.
3. Kisfalvi says the average time for someone to read and reply to a text is five seconds. If a driver is going 55 mph, he’ll have taken his eyes off the road for 100 yards, or the length of a football field.
4. Earbuds and two-earpiece headsets are totally legal. Which means you can technically gab with your mother or listen to Iron Maiden on iTunes while driving—again, assuming an onlooking officer doesn’t suspect you’re too distracted to drive safely.
5. Cops aren’t the only ones hypervigilant toward texting drivers. So are motorcycle riders, who don’t need another reason for drivers not to see them riding near their cars. “This is a big concern to our community,” said one motorcyclist in the audience Sunday.
6. Kisfalvi also spoke at length about DUIs, saying arrests have gone down from 10,000-11,000 a year to about 7,500. However, more drivers under the influence of cannabis are going to jail—and with recreational marijuana now legal, that rate should become higher than, well, those drivers.
