Police Say Texting While Driving Law is Hard to Enforce

    October 11, 2012 - The law prohibiting texting while driving has been in affect since March.

    But how are police enforcing this law?

    It's a tricky law to enforce, finding drivers behind the wheel blatantly texting while driving, but some citations have been written.

    The traffic unit for the Erie Police Department has only written one citation since March.

    In Millcreek, Cpl. Anthony Chimera says he's written a handful of citations.

    No statistics were available from the Pennsylvania State Police.

    Officers say that looking up this information is a challenge because the system has all citations listed together.

    Corporal Chimera says it's a challenge to pin the offense on people.

    He's seen and then cited drivers who spot the police officer driving up behind them and then try to hide.

"It's not always easy to see people texting while they're driving," said Cpl Anthony Chimera. "You're in your car, they're in their car. Some people are pretty obvious about it they will be right up here texting other people are maybe doing it in their lap so that people can't see them but it does present a challenge."

Texting and driving is not only dangerous, it's against the law.

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