The Rockaway Beach Police Department, as part of our Oregon Impact and ODOT traffic safety grants are required to allocate hours that are considered “match” time to the traffic safety programs we have received grants for. The match time is done while the officer is on their normal shift, but still focuses on areas covered by the grants. This encourages officers to maintain an awareness of the traffic safety issues in their area. In the month of March, the department completed some of our match time. There were three match shifts reported by officers, resulting in six stops. Three citations were issued and three stops ended with education/warnings.
April is designated as Distracted Driving Awareness Month. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) identifies distracted driving as a specific type of inattention that occurs when drivers divert their attention from the driving task to focus on some other activity instead.
One of the most recognizable forms of distracted driving is the use of a cell phone. According to information provided there were 1,193 fatal or injury crashes involving a driver reported to be using a cell phone from the years 2014-2018 in Oregon.
