How the law will catch you texting, driving

Law enforcement agencies are beefing up patrols around the state until April 20 to stop distracted drivers.

More than 86,000 crashes occurred between 2009 and 2013 due to distracted driving. That's about 25 percent of all crashes in the state in the last five years.

Donna Berger, director of the Office of Traffic Safety, joined The Daily Circuit to discuss education efforts to stop distracted driving. Highlights from that conversation:

A five-second interruption
"If you take your eyes off the road for up to five seconds, which is what we talk about with texting, at 55 miles per hour, you're going the distance of a football field. That's a significant amount of roadway you're covering ... people could be stopped out ahead of you, a child could be coming out, a motorcycle, anyone you're sharing the road with. The situation could change in a second. No one plans to go out and be in a car crash when they leave in the morning, yet we have so many of these crashes ... 86,000 in five years that are attributed just to distracted driving. ... "Behind the wheel is not somewhere where you should be multitasking. People believe that they can multitask, but they really can't. You have to totally focus your eyes and your mind on driving itself."

How they'll catch you
"We have several law enforcement agencies riding around in buses as spotters, or taller vehicles. They're being the spotters. And then they have other law enforcement in their squads. If they view someone, or they can tell a motorist is engaging in distracted driving behavior, then they will send the squad off to make that contact.

"And we also have law enforcement doing live tweets today. They're doing live tweets of stops. They're just doing age and gender and what the distracted driving behavior was. ..."

(At this point, host Marianne Combs interjected, "Wait a second! So you're saying while I'm out driving I should be looking at my Twitter feed?")

"No, absolutely not. But if you're sitting at your desk, you might want to follow the Office of Traffic Safety and see some of the behavior we have."

Some examples:

49 yo female driver warned about wearing ear buds in both ears during enhanced enforcement for distracted driving in Plymouth. #JustDrive

— MnDPS_OTS (@MnDPS_OTS) April 11, 2014

25 yo female cited for texting on Hwys 42/13 in Scott County. Put the phone down and #JustDrive.

— MnDPS_OTS (@MnDPS_OTS) April 11, 2014

35 yo male cited on westbound 55/Rockford Rd for reading while driving. Eliminate distractes and #JustDrive!

— MnDPS_OTS (@MnDPS_OTS) April 11, 2014

Minnetonka's 1st distracted driving citation, 34 yo male, Hwys 100/394. Statewide enhanced enforcement April 11-20. #JustDrive

— MnDPS_OTS (@MnDPS_OTS) April 11, 2014