At 8 O’clock Wednesday morning, Corpus Christi Police Department officers camped out at Staples and South Padre Island Dr., one of the city’s busiest intersections.
They weren’t looking for speeders. Instead these cops were looking for people on their phones.
An hour later, police had issued “approximately 50 citations,” according to CCPD officer Patsy Silva.
CCPD called the operation a focused enforcement. In essence, it was a crackdown on distracted driving.
According to dmv.org, about 481,000 drivers use their phones while driving at any given moment.
Also, distracted driving kills more than 3,000 people every year, or about one every nine minutes.
“Using your cell phone while driving, studies show it’s almost worse than driving while intoxicated,” said Silva.
Texas passed a distracted driving law in 2017, but Corpus Christi has had a similar law on the books since 2013.
Anyone caught using their phone faces up to a $500 ticket.
