Crime & Safety
485 Tickets Issued by Twp. Police in Distracted Driving Crackdown
194 summonses given for cell phone use while driving, police report.
Forty percent of all tickets issued in Washington Township over the first three weeks of April were due to the use of cell phones, as stepped-up patrol units cracked down on distracted driving.
A total of 485 tickets were issued between April 1 and April 21 after the police department received a $5,000 grant to employ additional patrol units during that time frame as part of the UDrive, UText, UPay program, modeled after the annual Click It or Ticket campaign.
The breakdown of tickets issued during the crackdown is as follows:
Find out what's happening in Long Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
- DWI/Alcohol: 1
- DWI/Drugs: 1
- Seat Belt: 25
- Child Restraint: 0
- Speeding: 18
- Reckless Driving: 1
- Cell Phone/Texting: 194
- Careless Driving: 12
- Suspended License: 13
- Other: 220
- Total: 485
The average comes out to 23.1 tickets issued per day during the campaign. For comparison, during regular patrol enforcement over the first 90 days of the year, 1,411 tickets were issued in Washington Township – an average of 15.7 per day.
The month of March was the most ticketed month with 496 issued in 31 days, an average of 16 per day.
Find out what's happening in Long Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Different tactics were used to enforce the law during the campaign, according to Lt. Doug Compton.
Did you see the extra patrol units over the last three weeks? Do you think the campaign is effective?
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
