How Does Allegheny County Stack Up On Giving Tickets?

Well the good news is the number of tickets police have been writing to Pennsylvania drivers, who text while driving, is on the increase.

In fact, the number of tickets has been steadily increasing for the last few years.

If you recall from some of my earlier rants from my Facebook page, I think this is long over due.

A teenage kid who has his license for a year or two and is trying to text and drive is just about the equivalent of driving with a blindfold on.

And as we have said before, it doesn’t matter if one uses a hands free speaker or not. A Carnegie Mellon study verified that.

The results are still the same.

You are distracted when you are driving if you text. Period.

Most appalling to me is when I see truck drivers of these huge rigs texting while driving.

This is an absolute disaster waiting to happen to anyone of us or even a loved one.

Therefore, I was very happily surprised to hear about the ticket increases.

I was also surprised to hear that Allegheny County came in 2nd in the state for giving out the most distracted driver citations in 2015.

Allegheny County issued 235 citations.

Montgomery County had 298 citations, and led all counties in the Commonwealth. (But #2 is pretty good.)

Pittsburgh Wrongful Death, Medical Malpractice, Car Accident, Slip & Fall, Traffic and Criminal Defense Attorney Bernie Tully,
thinks there are some legal difficulties in the police proving their case.

I mean how are they able to determine that a person whose head is down is texting?

It seems like in order to get close enough they would have to basically be tailgating the distracted driver. That could be dangerous.

But the alternative of not giving tickets would be much worse. For us as a society not to address this extreme problem is crazy.

Texting while driving kills.

That is the hugely important issue here.

And the injuries that can occur, even if there is not a fatality, are still devastating.

All this because someone wants to say that they are on their way home or otherwise.

The statistics I mentioned in this Blog were from a KDKA Facebook page article.

The other thing I didn’t realize is that if you are a driver who is wearing a headphone or ear buds, that you can also be cited for a traffic violation by the police.

Is there anyone out there who really doesn’t believe that distracted driving is a potentially deadly issue?

Pittsburgh Wrongful Death, Medical Malpractice, Car Accident, Slip & Fall, Traffic and Criminal Defense Attorney Bernie Tully thinks the answer is obvious.

Stop texting before a loved one dies.

I would take it one step further.

I have on occasion even called 911 to let the police know that there is a car weaving on the highway and the driver is obviously texting. I really think this is important.

What do you think about all this?

Thanks for reading.

Bernie the Attorney