The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette
More than 40,000 people in the U.S. were killed last year in vehicle crashes, according to preliminary data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The new statistics, released to coincide with the launch of the agency’s “Put the Phone Away or Pay” campaign, add to concerns that little is being done to address “distracted driving,” one of the most common causes of preventable traffic deaths.
The federal agency said the issue has only grown in urgency with the ubiquity of smartphones, resulting in 3,308 deaths and 289,310 injuries in 2022, and 3,522 deaths in 2021.
This week, the Fort Wayne Police Department shared with The Journal Gazette its annual traffic report for 2023. Lt. Anthony Maze, a member of the Fort Wayne/Allen County Crash Team, said distracted driving is hard to enforce and, consequently, remains underreported.
“In reviewing crash reports, (motorists) will tell the officer, ‘I was looking down’ or ‘I dropped something,’ when in reality, they could have been on their phone,” Maze said. “We’re not going to know it, and they’re not going to admit it.”
Indiana statute allows law enforcement to pull over a motorist for distracted driving only if an officer sees a phone in the driver’s hand. Still, 128 local motorists were ticketed or issued electronic citations for distracted driving in 2023.
The largest number of traffic complaints to Fort Wayne police are for speeders and motorists disregarding traffic lights and stop signs, Maze said.
“We will get complaints from citizens within neighborhoods of stop signs being run during peak hours, like going to work and coming home,” he said. “We had 426 electronic citations written for disregarding a traffic control signal or sign, and 295 more in handwritten tickets.”
Fort Wayne has no red-light cameras that snap photos of vehicles running traffic signals, Maze said, but the Traffic Engineering Department sets cameras along roads to monitor traffic flow and congestion that the local crash team can use to review crashes for violations. Most are set along the Coliseum Boulevard and Lafayette Street corridors, but others are placed in locations across the city.
FWPD’s 2023 traffic report contained mostly good news. The 8,054 property-damage accidents and 2,133 hit-and-run crashes represent eight-year lows within the city, but the reported 1,573 personal-injury accidents in 2023 are at a four-year high and the number of crashes involving intoxicated or impaired drivers, 359, is up 107 over 2022.
Nineteen people were killed in crashes last year, the same number as in 2022. The eight-year low for traffic fatalities was 14 in 2018. The highest number since 2016 was 28 traffic deaths in 2021.
Scare campaigns, such as the federal traffic safety agency’s “Put the Phone Away or Pay” crusade, are usually not effective, said Rachel Blakeman, director of Purdue Fort Wayne’s Community Research Institute. She told The Journal Gazette motorists need strategies to reduce distractions while driving.
Lt. Maze of the Fort Wayne/Allen County Crash Team offers these suggestions:
Exercise patience: “We’ve already got construction delays as it is. Maybe plan your day to leave 10 to 15 minutes early to arrive at your destination.”
Be vigilant: “Be aware of what the other drivers are doing around you, especially now with the warmer weather and motorcyclists being out.”
Limit eating and drinking to traffic stops: “There’s no traffic offense about eating or drinking in your car. Try not to do that while you’re in motion.”
That’s good information to consider as we drive through neighborhoods, down boulevards and on highways throughout Fort Wayne. It’s our choice to control how we drive to protect ourselves, our passengers and the people with whom we share the road.
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