Highway patrol officers drive semi-trucks to catch drivers texting

Good, Texting while driving is minor compared to a lot of other "violations" 4 wheelers and truckers do when smokey bear isn't watching...

 

Good. Why didnt they think of this sooner?

 

How safe a driver is the cop going to be when he is constantly looking in cars?

 

I'm betting no worse than the 99% of male truckers who always take that same glance, but in hopes of a short skirt.

 

Do not need to be up so high to see them texting.

You can see them looking down in front of you.

Wonder what he will do to the first patrol officer doing it?

 

Just another way to get more revenue for the state from truck drivers they don't care about safety

 

This isn't new--hard to search on phone--but was discussion bout year ago--And there are/were anyway 2 officers in the truck--met em at Knoxville Ta on watt--couple real decent men
jus my $.02

 

That's the thing Roadmedic, just looking down was good enough at first but it's not evidence in any way. Judges started disallowing this arbitrary form of "evidence" and now the popo need to actually see the phone. I know up here they've taken advantage of these laws and were handing out tickets randomly without evidence (outright lying to collect money). 'Til they started ticketing people who actually never owned a cellphone, or the phone which they saw without a doubt which they said was silver turned out to be red ???

Judges caught on pretty quick.

Once they realized they wouldn't be able to run this willy nilly like they thought they would the laws were quietly changed to include "officers discretion" which includes; eating, drinking, "tending to children" (which can be as simple as talking to them), anything that they deem "distracts you".

Some people think this is good and will keep the roads safe, but I fail to see how these guys can be trusted to use any form of common sense and discretion. After all, these are the same guys killing people left and right and violating peoples rights in newsworthy ways on a weekly basis.

 

Just looking down gives them a chance to concentrate more on the driver doing it. The need for the semi, is not for the cars. It is to put them up on the same level as the truck driver as well. Hard for them to see in the truck from down below.