Police Chief: You Are Part of the Texting and Driving Problem

In a Friday blog post, Edina Police Chief Jeff Long tells a story about conducting an afternoon texting-and-driving enforcement effort around Edina High School. Officers expected to catch quite a few teens. But to their surprise, the majority of the people they caught wound up being adults.

“So why is distracted driving now the leading cause of death for teens?” asked Long, whose daughter was injured by a distracted driver. “I don’t think we need to look further than the mirror. We have not done a very good job of modeling good behavior. What do you see when you sit at a stoplight or while stuck in rush hour traffic? Driver after driver looking down at their phones.”

Long’s post drips with frustration. He describes poorly attended education events and continued bad driving even as statistics showed that 3,000 teen deaths and 300,000 injuries from texting and driving each year.

The chief concludes by challenging adults to set a better example for young drivers.

Click here to read the full post.