To the east of Atlanta just south of Athens is Watkinsville, Georgia. The town resides in Oconee County, which has witnessed a startling and consistent rise in car accidents — mainly driven by the sudden grip of distracted driving over many drivers. The county now averages about 180 car accidents a month, or roughly six per day.
The county recently set up a traffic stop operation to hand out tickets in order to promote safety on the roads. And what did they find? Most of the tickets they were handing out were for texting while driving. Specific numbers were not made available in our source article, except that 96 stops were made during the operation. Not all 96 stops were for texting while driving violations, but “many of them” were, according to the Oconee Conuty Sheriff.
So what can we learn from this story? Well, there are two prominent lessons. The first is that texting while driving — and the wider issue of distracted driving — are alive and well, even after years and years of public service announcement and safety programs. People are still choosing to use their cellphones while driving, a blatantly negligent and dangerous act.
The other lesson here is that distracted driving is not simply limited to large cities like Atlanta. Even smaller communities, counties, municipalities and areas can suffer because of the terrible effects of distracted driving.
Source: FOX 5 Atlanta, “Oconee County deputies cracking down on texting and driving,” Katie Beasley, Aug. 22, 2017
