Next time you’re stopped at a red light and see someone on the side of the road holding a cardboard sign you might want to read that sign, otherwise you could end up losing your license. How exactly do we go from ‘avoiding the gaze of that homeless person holding a cardboard sign’ to ‘you losing your license and having to ride your bicycle to work/school and being that bro with permanent pit stains’? Well, let’s take a look at a recent sting operation held by the San Bernardino Police Department (in California) that led to a comical number of citations for people texting while driving and driving without wearing a seat belt.
Officers in the San Bernardino Police Department set up a traffic sting operation during which they stood on the side of a highway off-ramp, dressed in their street clothes, each holding cardboard signs stating ‘I am not homeless. SB Police. Looking for seat belt / cell phone violations.’, and they then proceeded to ticket the ever living sh*t out of drivers stopped at the red light while getting off the highway who were either not wearing a seat belt or who were fidgeting with their phones.
Four officers with the San Bernardino Police Department camped out along a California highway off-ramp posing as panhandlers as part of an undercover sting to bust distracted drivers.
It worked.The four-hour operation led to 50 total vehicle stops, including 33 for cell phone violations, 15 seat belt violations and five cars impounded because the drivers were either unlicensed or driving on suspended licenses, police said.
“During this detail, our undercover officers walked up to the windows of many vehicles unnoticed by the drivers that were either talking or texting on their cell phones,” police said in a statement on the sting. “Those calls and messages can wait until you arrive at your destination and are not worth risking the life of yourself or those around you while driving.”
There were also a handful of citations for other traffic violations. All of these citations resulted because people were too afraid to look the supposedly homeless person on the side of the highway in the eyes, so they ignored that person and went about their business. That, and they were all breaking the law.
I personally see no harm whatsoever in people texting or fidgeting with their phones when they’re stopped at a red light, I do however get the danger in someone not wearing a seat belt while driving….That’s how necks get broken.