Texting, Talking While Driving Crackdown Begins Monday

Driving while texting? Holding a cell phone to your ear or have it on speaker phone in one hand? 

Get $250 ready for your first ticket. Or better yet, make a pact with your family you won't endanger yourself or others that way again.

Beginning Monday, more than 200 police agencies across the state will take part in a monthlong crackdown on distracted driving.

It is also California Teen Safe Driving Month. 

Gary Richard, aka Mr. Roadshow in the San Jose Mercury News devoted an entire column to the distracted driving question and this month's crackdown. He cited a 2006 study by University of Utah researchers that concluded that talking on a hands-free or handheld cellphone leaves a driver as impaired as drinking.

Visit the National Safety Council's website and you can read a lot about the reason why: Inattention blindness. Motorists may be look directly at the road but what they see—merging lanes, red lights, stop sign—often doesn't register because they are distracted by their cellphone conversations. Such drivers aren't aware they are impaired. The study suggests that when teenagers and young adults talk on cellphones while driving, their reaction times are as slow as those much maligned elderly motorists.

The intention of this continued enforcement effort is to turn that awareness into a behavior change to save lives. If you become tempted to answer, send that text, or make that quick call while driving:

"Don't - it's NOT worth it!"

For more information on distracted driving awareness click on the California Office of Traffic Safety.