N.D. needs to focus on safe driving

The consequences of causing a traffic accident can be terrible. Yet many people increase their risk of causing an accident by violating traffic rules, laws and ordinances and ignoring common sense. It makes the need for more intense enforcement of the rules of the road critical.

Do not underestimate the life-changing (or ending) trauma — emotional, physical or financial — that can result from a traffic accident — even on city streets.

The Bismarck Police Department conducted a “texting sting” for two days recently. The department issued 31 citations for texting and driving. It’s against the law because distracted driving can greatly interfere with a driver’s awareness of changes on the road. The state Legislature passed the ban on texting and driving in its 2011 session, about a year after the city of Bismarck adopted a ban on the dangerous practice.

Most drivers have watched a car ahead of them wander in and out of its lane while the driver texts. It’s frightening. You don’t actually know if the driver is texting, intoxicated or having some kind of seizure. The result is the same: an accident waiting to happen.

It makes defensive driving an absolute necessity.

So far in 2012, there have been 122 traffic fatalities, up from 94 last year. That’s 28 additional lives lost. About 50 percent of those fatalities are in crashes where alcohol is involved. The cause and effect between drinking and poor driving performance can’t be denied. Not every drunken driver ends up in an accident. But too many do. And too often, it’s the other guy who’s injured badly or killed.

Like the Bismarck Police Department’s sting for texting drivers, most departments do major traffic events, collecting DUI citations to drive home the need to drive sober. Some people would like you to believe this is entrapment or is somehow unfair to people who text while driving or drive after they have had too much to drink. Frankly, that’s not true. No one’s privacy is being violated. No one’s rights are being run over. The traffic events often are well-publicized.

What they do is bring attention to illegal behavior. And it’s illegal because of risk it poses to those behind the wheel or their victims in a traffic accident that results from unsafe and reckless choices.

There should be more “texting stings,” and more stops for potential drunken driving by Bismarck police and other law enforcement agencies.

Tags: opinion, editorials, transportation