State patrol urging drivers to put down Pokemon Go in light of national report on dangers

Published 7:30 am Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The Washington State Patrol is urging drivers to focus on the road, not their phones, after a report revealed that 14 crashes in 10 days were caused by Pokemon Go.

“The Washington State Patrol is urging drivers to put the brakes on using Pokemon Go or other apps while behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. The patrol has already witnessed collisions and dangerous driving behavior as a result of drivers and passengers distracted by the online game,” the agency said in a Sept. 19 press release.

A national report by the Journal of American Medical Association released Sept. 16 investigated 14 Pokemon Go-related crashes in July and found an estimated 113,993 tweets were sent within the span of 10 days that depicted drivers or pedestrians were distracted by the game. Eighteen percent of those tweets indicated a person was playing while driving, according to the study.

During the 10 day time period assessed in the study, state patrol officers responded to a collision and pulled over several drivers who had been playing the game on their phones while driving. In Bellevue, pedestrians playing the game have darted into traffic in search of Pokemon, though no traffic accidents involving Pokemon Go have been reported at press time.

The phenomenon of driving while distracted has been growing over the last few years, according to state Traffic Safety Commission and Department of Licensing. Fatalities caused by distracted driving were up 30.8 percent in 2015.

State troopers are urging drivers to consider safety over their high score and stop catching Pokemon while driving, as they said it’s more dangerous than texting while driving.