The Center for Rural Pennsylvania recently published a county map listing the number of violations for texting while driving issued per 100,000 licensed drivers. Five counties had no citations whatsoever—Forest, Clinton, Sullivan, Huntingdon, and Fulton. Then came Crawford with 1.6 citations per 100,000, followed by Carbon County, with 2. Potter County was first, with 69.3.
Why was Carbon so low? I can think of a number of reasons:
1. Residents of Carbon are law abiding. Actually, I don’t buy that one. Just tonight the Times News reported on a woman in Mahoning Township who attacked her neighbor with a weed whacker. While that crime may not be typical, Carbon has quite a few people who end up in court for all kinds of offenses.
2. Carbon residents don’t have cell phones. Again, I don’t buy that one. While it’s true that I don’t have a cell phone, everyone else I know does.
3. Carbon drivers are old and don’t text much. That one makes some sense. I don’t know what the median age of the Carbon population is, but there are a heck of a lot of old people in Carbon.
4. Carbon County police officers are lax about enforcing the law against texting while driving. I have no comment on that one.
In any case, I’ll bet we are doing better in weed whacker attacks per 100,000.
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