Wash. Man Caught Playing Pokémon Go On 8 Phones In His Car

TUKWILA, WA — To catch them all, some people are willing to go to extreme lengths.

A Washington State Patrol trooper on Tuesday discovered a driver who was playing Pokémon Go on eight different phones in his car. The man had the phones mounted in a special foam case, which was resting just above his car's gearshift.

The state trooper found the man sitting in his car near SR 518 and SR 99, just north of Sea-Tac Airport. The man was pulled over on the shoulder when he was caught, so he wasn't technically violating Washington's distracted driving law.

Sgt. Kyle Smith let the man go with a warning when the gamer agreed to put the eight phones away in his back seat.

And good thing the man agreed to do that. There are dozens of tales of injuries or deaths related to the game.

Two Purdue University professors published a paper in 2017 finding a correlation in car crashes near Pokémon Go stops in Indiana. There's also the Pokémon Go death tracker, which collects news reports about people hurt or killed in game-related accidents — like the 2016 incident where a teacher in Clearwater, Fla., hit two pedestrians while playing the game.

The database also includes incidents like the 2017 murder of James Timmons, 45, in Tacoma. Timmons was well-known in the Pokémon Go community, and was out searching for Pokémon creatures early one morning when he was shot to death.