Fresno police handed out 125 tickets in a day to drivers on cellphones. Here are the fines
It’s been nearly a decade and a half since using a cellphone while driving became an infraction, but an enforcement effort this week by Fresno-area police still caught scores of people.
Fresno police handed out 125 tickets in one day on Monday, what potentially amounts to about $20,000 in fines, according to Sgt. Diana Trueba Vega.
Police gave out 1,392 distracted driving citations in all of 2021, an average of fewer than four tickets a day for the infraction, she said.
A first-time offense carries a fine of $175 but the driver’s record is spared of a point, police said. A person who gets a second infraction within three years of their first gets a ding on their record and higher fines.
California added a distracted driving law in 2008, which says drivers are not allowed to hold their phone or other electronic device while driving. That includes talking on the phone, texting or using an app.
Assembly Bill 47 increased the minimum citation fine in 2021 to $162, up from what was initially a minimum of $20.
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, multiple police agencies have noted on their social media pages.
Clovis police said on Facebook they are also focused on distracted driving this month.
“A driver’s focus should be on the road, not their phone,” Clovis Police Officer Antonio Ferguson said in the Facebook post. “That text, phone call, email or social media post is not worth the risk to yourself and other people on the road.”
In California, there were an estimated 3,413 traffic fatalities in the first nine months of 2021, up 16% from the same period in 2020, according to National Safety Council estimates. Those fatalities resulted from multiple different factors and not solely distracted driving.
Funding for police enforcement programs were provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to police.
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 3:23 PM.
