Thirty-Two People Counted Texting and Driving in One Hour

Do you text or talk on the phone while you're driving? If you said yes, you aren't alone. Data from the California Office of Traffic Safety report that at any one time, an estimated 10 percent of drivers on the road are texting or talking on the phone while driving.

That got us thinking. How bad is the probelm really? An unscientific experiment conducted by Rohnert Park Patch shed some light on the problem locally.

We asked readers two weeks ago where to find people texting or talking and driving in Rohnert Park. Based on reader input, and traffic violation data from the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety, we found:

Two of the busiest throughfares in Rohnert Park are Snyder Lane between Golf Course Drive and East Cotati Avenue, and Rohnert Park Expressway between Commerce Boulevard and Snyder Lane.

Snyder gets especially congested before and after school — Lawrence E. Jones Middle School, Rancho Cotate High and Sonoma State University traffic all commence in that area.

So we hung out on Snyder Tuesday and counted traffic traveling north and southbound between Expressway and Southwest, and found just five drivers using cell phones while driving in a one-half hour period between 3 and 4 p.m.

For the most part, people slowed down for pedestrians and cyclists crossing Snyder at Copeland Creek and finding someone talking or texting was rare, which we found surprising considering the waves of cars traveling through that area during the school year.

Expressway at State Farm Drive was another story.

Between 4 and 5 p.m., when most commuters are driving home from work, we couldn't count fast enough. We tallied 27 people actually talking on the phone or texting, also in a half-hour period.

There might have been more people texting, but we only counted the phones we physically saw with our own eyes.

Police said traffic safety is very important at a recent City Council meeting, reporting 143 cell phone violation tickets issued between January 1 and July 31,  2011.

Following the Sept. 7 decision by Gov. Jerry Brown to a veto law that , we asked Rohnert Park Patch readers if Brown made the right decision.

The story only generated , but they were passionate.

One person said $20 isn't even a slap on the wrist; others voiced safety concerns.

"I certainly support discouraging cell phone use while driving a car, but not ratcheting up the penalites as prescribed in this bill," Brown said. "For people of ordinary means, current fines and penalty assessments should be sufficiently deterrent."

The conversation about crosswalk safety regionally is mounting, with Kaitlyn Dunaway expected to make her plea Thursday morning, and the recent death of a 4-year-old Santa Rosa boy.

Here, we know all-too-well that texting and driving can kill. Two-year-old Calli Murray was run over by Dunaway, who police said was using her phone when Calli and her mother Ling.

The aftermath of the tragic Murray accident and sorrow from thousands of people throughout Sonoma County, and the city subsequently , which found at least 70 unsafe intersections in Rohnert Park including where the Murrays were hit.

What do you think? Should fines for distracted driving should go up? What can be done to get drivers off their phones? Do you think distracted driving is a problem here?

Editor's note: Currently a first offense is just $20 and a second is $50. The new law would have hiked those fees to $50 for the first violation and $100 for the next, according to bill sponsors. After county fees, the cost would have gone from from between $160 and $180 to about $310 for the first violation, according to officials with the Sonoma County Courthouse traffic division.