If you happen to be one of the countless numbskulls out there who text while driving and talk on cellphones without hands-free devices, too distracted to know red from green or fast from slow, I've got news for you, Cookie.
LAPD traffic officer Kamaron Sardar is going to get you.
Did you not get the memo, nearly TWO YEARS AGO, that it's illegal to talk on a phone without a hands-free device? And what makes you think you're so important that you have to text while driving, putting everyone around you at risk?
Ys. I M Tlkng 2U!
Everyone is text-happy, Sardar said, but if you're not a motorcycle cop who can split traffic and come right up on the culprit, it's hard to nail somebody who's thumbing away with their hands down low. Cellphone gabbers are much easier to spot, he said. And a lot of them drive almost exactly like drunk drivers, weaving, altering speeds and changing lanes without looking.
So he parked on a side street along Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz, next to Mustard Seed restaurant, and we watched the cars go by.
Don't worry, Sardar told me. This is L.A., and we would not fail.
Five minutes into it, boom!
Eat your heart out, Starsky and Hutch.
David insisted he can drive safely while talking and that he is too technologically challenged to bother with a hands-free device. The really dangerous drivers, he said, are the ones texting.
Tell it to the judge, Davey.
Fact: Distracted driving causes an estimated 6,000 fatalities each year in the U.S., and some of the more common distractions include texting, phoning or fiddling with a GPS.
Fact: An estimated 500,000 people are injured each year by distracted drivers.
Fact: A first-offense citation like the one Sardar wrote Dave costs way too little to be a deterrent. The ticket, court costs and penalties total only about $76.
Fact: I'd raise it to $500.
More for the second offense. Jail for the third, just like DUI.
The most distraught guy we nabbed was Arthur, one of those typically oblivious drivers who was practically stopped in the middle of Hillhurst, phone to his ear.
Arthur said he was a messenger from Glendale and he was getting $7 to deliver a package to an address he couldn't find. That's why he was on the phone. He almost had a stroke when I told him the ticket would cost him 10 delivery fees.
Arthur had a passenger who didn't speak English.
"He's a magician," Arthur told me, and his friend demonstrated by throwing his voice.
"Good," I said. "Let's see if he can make your ticket disappear."
Heh. Enjoy the rest.
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