SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City Police are noticing a new trend on the city's roads that has them very nervous.
“They keep finding people that are either FaceTiming, on Zoom calls, business calls, whatever it may be,” SLCPD Detective Michael Ruff said. “[Their] phone's up on the dashboard in a cup holder, and they are having a video chat while they drive.”
SLCPD tweeted earlier this week that they "don't want to write you a ticket, or worse yet, tell your family you were hurt or killed. Your meeting can wait, it may just save your life.”
Our motor officers are seeing more drivers on video chats than ever before. We don't want to write you a ticket, or worse yet, tell your family you were hurt or killed. Your meeting can wait, it may just save your life. #justdrive #slc #utah #distracteddriving #saltlakecity pic.twitter.com/Ave5OB8oAp
— SLC Police Dept. (@slcpd) September 15, 2021
The SLCPD Motors Division seeing most of these incidents.
Ruff said they haven’t even been targeting distracted driving most of the time. Instead, they are finding people during other traffic stops on FaceTime or Zoom.
The law is much stricter regarding video chat than merely talking on the phone.
“You can’t have video playing while you drive, even if it's you trying to play a video on your stereo,” Ruff said. “Your kids in the back seat can watch it, [but] you as the driver should not have video playing while you are driving.”
“Turn the video off, turn your camera off, just talk on the audio part," he continued. "Preferably, try not to have it in the car at all.”
