The St. Cloud Police Department is using state funds to add patrols that will help keep a lookout for distracted drivers.
Over two days last week, St. Cloud Police units partnered with Best Foot Forward to work special details designed to educate drivers and enforce laws related to crosswalk safety, as well as conduct operations to discourage distracted driving.
Thanks to a $27,000 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation, you may see more of them—and here’s hoping you see them from the shoulder or across the way, rather than standing beside your door issuing a citation.
In operations at Old Canoe Creek and Clay Whaley Road, and in the school zone on Budinger Avenue in front of St. Cloud Elementary School, SCPD said they issued 31 warnings and wrote 61 citations. As an example, texting while driving carries a $116 fine—but add $160 if caught doing it in a school zone.
“Florida law speaks to what you can and can’t do while driving,” St. Cloud Police spokesperson Andrew Sullivan said. “We’re just enforcing those laws.
“We’re trying to keep kids safe. Even if you’re driving 15 mph (a common school zone speed), if you look away for those couple of seconds, you’ve passed several hundred feet where people, like children near a school, could be walking.”
The grant provides the ability to assign officers to a dedicated distracted driving enforcement program. The patrol last week was the second of eight total operations SCPD will do to specifically target distracted driving.
“We have 120 sworn officers who have to spread out to serve nearly 70,000 residents,” Sullivan said. “In that regard, we’re a small department. This way, we can pay for the manpower to assign manpower to these patrols without having to pull them off other details.”
City officials said that a previous distracted driving operation in April resulted in 42 citations and 53 warnings issued during 87 total driver contacts.
So the message to St. Cloud is simple: put your phone down and pay attention to the road; that call or text can wait until you get to your destination.
