SALT LAKE CITY—More people were pulled over for texting, emailing or checking Facebook on their cellphones behind the wheel on Utah’s highways in a six-month snapshot of 2015, marking a second year of growth in stops since the law was tightened, according to new data released by the Utah Highway Patrol.
Troopers pulled over 780 people between May and October of 2015, up from 692 stops during the same period the year before.
That’s an increase of about 12 percent, but the numbers didn’t expand nearly as quickly as the year before. The number of people nabbed under the rule quadrupled in 2014, the first year that the state’s texting-while-driving law was expanded to prohibit any kind of phone manipulation behind the wheel except for talking or getting directions.
University of Utah professor David Strayer, who studies distracted driving, said the practice is twice as risky as drunken driving.
It’s also become pervasive: about 10 percent of drivers are talking or texting on their phone at any given time, Strayer said.
“It’s really clear that taking your eyes off the road and hands off the wheel to manipulate any device is really hazardous,” he said.
