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Austin police giving fewer tickets for cellphone use while driving, say it's because of staffing issues and compliance

Data from the Austin Municipal Court shows police have issued fewer citations for cellphone use while driving every year since 2017.

AUSTIN, Texas — In the past few years, police officers in Austin have issued increasingly less citations for people using cellphones while driving, according to data from the City of Austin. Austin police said the dropping number could be related to not having enough officers on the road. 

"We just don't have the staffing that we used to have to be able to go out and enforce it," said Detective Patrick Oborsky, with the police department's highway enforcement. "Just because they see it, they may be en route to a family disturbance where they can't respond to stop somebody. They've got another important call that they're responding to."

The Austin Police Department has 180 officer vacancies. Detective Oborsky said the on-duty officers are flooded with other calls. 

"They've got to prioritize, what's the biggest threat at that time?" said Oborsky.

He said another reason is that drivers are complying to the hands-free ordinance. 

"We did a big education push. We did a big enforcement push, so we wrote all those citations. We educated the public a lot," said Oborsky.

Records of citations kept by the Austin Municipal Court date back further than 2015, the year it became illegal to use a phone while operating a car.

During the last fiscal year, police officers wrote 3,756 tickets for cellphone use while driving, according to court data.

But police issued 7,464 citations for cellphone use in the fiscal year of 2018, and 10,182 tickets in the fiscal year of 2017.

Below is a breakdown of all the citations police issued for using a cellphone while driving since 2015, broken down by fiscal year:

  • 2020: 728 (so far)
  • 2019: 3,756
  • 2018: 7,464
  • 2017: 10,182
  • 2016: 5,980
  • 2015: 4,494

Every year, charge codes issued by police officers can change slightly.

A spokesperson for Austin police confirmed searching for the following charges in court data would yield total citations for cellphone use while driving: electronic device use while driving, NVM – electronic device use, school zone – wireless device use, texting prohibited while driving, use wireless device while driving – under 18, electronic messaging while driving, school property – wireless device use and CMV – use of hand-held mobile telephone.

In Austin, traffic deaths have been up the last three years. In 2019, 86 people died in traffic crashes. While there's no data showing the leading cause of the traffic fatalities, Detective Oborsky said the leading cause of crashes in general is distracted driving. 

RELATED: Austin sees rise in traffic deaths in 2019

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