Busted by the Bus: Getting Drivers to Put Down Phones

Close to 1,000 drivers were cited for texting and driving in Minnesota this past year, a trend that police want to stop.

The dangers of texting and driving are no secret but in an age where staying connected has become almost an addiction, texting and driving is on the rise.

From 2014 to 2015, texting and driving citations went up by 65% and for police, that’s just more accidents waiting to happen.
 
It’s your typical big yellow bus but step inside and you won’t find kids on this one.
 
Over the next two days, law enforcement in Minnesota will be out on the streets cracking down on texting and driving.

Thanks to this big yellow bus, officers are hoping to catch even more law breakers.
 
“I’ve actually had an accident in front of me which was directly the cause of texting while driving. When I went to approach her car to see if she was ok the app was still open and she was texting which caused a three car accident,” says Moorhead Police Officer, Mike Fildes.
 
As he spots another texter, it seems even the law isn’t getting people to put down their phones.
 
“The studies are showing most people 100% agree that you shouldn’t be texting while driving. What those same studies are showing is that people still do it,” says Lt. Deric Swenson with Moorhead PD.
 
But the bus isn’t just for the purpose of catching those texting; it’s also serving as a reminder.

Lt. Swenson says just this year in Moorhead there’s already been 143 school bus arm violations.
 
“So obviously people aren’t paying attention if they saw the red lights, and see the stop arm coming out they normally would stop. We usually figure there is a distraction for why they don’t see or why they don’t stop for those children that are crossing,” says Lt. Swenson.

And as the bus continues to drive around town Moorhead police just have one simple request.
 
“What we ask is simply wait, wait a while before you respond to those emails, before you answer that text message,” says Lt. Swenson.

In just over four hours officers stopped 37 vehicles and issued 22 citations for distracted driving.

Unfortunately, Swenson says officers saw plenty of distracted drivers they couldn’t even pull over, because the texters outnumbered the officers.