More than 650 people caught driving distracted during week of ramped-up enforcement
May 2, 2025, 7:00 PM
Utah Highway Patrol trooper Geri Tew looks for distracted drivers along I-15 near Lehi on Thursday, April 8, 2021. The UHP and 20 other agencies will conduct a statewide distracted driver blitz through Monday morning, with the main focus in Salt Lake and Utah counties. Police in marked patrol cars, unmarked vehicles and motorcycles will be patrolling both the freeways and side streets. (Steve Griffin/Deseret News)
(Steve Griffin/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Highway Patrol is cracking down on distracted driving. Between April 7 and 14, they caught more than 650 people during their ramped-up enforcement period.
UHP Lt. Cameron Roden said that during that time, 21 agencies had officers in unmarked cars looking for people trying to multitask behind the wheel.
“We had a handful of officers that went out and stopped cars for about four hours, and in that four-hour period, we had 59 contacts for people who were distracted driving,” Roden said.
While texting and driving is an activity most commonly associated with distracted driving, Roden said it extends far beyond that.
“Manipulating any type of electronic device, whether that be reading emails, watching videos, surfing the internet, anything like that, would be illegal,” Roden said. “But we also have what’s called a careless driving statute in the state of Utah, where if an individual is distracted by any kind of distraction, whether that’s eating, makeup, shaving … and then you commit some kind of lane travel violation, that would fall under the careless driving statute and you could be stopped and cited for that.”
For distracted driving, Utah Code dictates that a first offense is typically a class C misdemeanor, with a potential fine of $100. If it leads to a crash that causes injuries, it could mean more serious charges.
April was Distracted Driving Awareness Month, so officers around the state were focused not just on enforcement, but on education. In 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says distraction-related accidents caused 3,275 fatalities across the nation.
“We know that distracted driving happens year-round. It causes crashes all the time,” Roden said. “But we want to make sure that we bring people, as we head into the 100 deadliest days of summer, when we know people are going to be doing a lot of traveling and people are going to be out and about enjoying their time, we want to make sure that people put these distractions away, helping us to start off the summer a lot stronger.”
Related: Utah’s distracted driving deaths stayed steady from 2023 to 2024, but that’s not the whole story
