Eagan Police Used A Unique Tactic To Catch Distracted Drivers

The Eagan Police Department took an unusual but very clever step to try and observe distracted drivers on the roadway. A handful of officers climbed aboard an Eagen School bus to get a better vantage point to find distracted drivers and it worked famously.

According to KARE11 once the officers would see a distracted driver from the bus they would radio ahead to other officers on patrol and give them a description of the vehicle that was in violation and they would pull over the motorist. Just in one afternoon Eagan police made 131 traffic stops, wrote 60 citations, and arrested one driver for operating under the influence. The investigation has been dubbed "Busted By Bus."

Eagan Police spokesman Aaron Machtemes said "The reason we're doing this is at the core of the problem is distracted driving. It's causing a number of stop arm violations near school buses. Any amount of stop arm violations is a big problem because it takes one to hurt or injure a child so it's happening frequently enough that we want to take this problem head-on and greatly reduce it or stop it"

Bus drivers in that area have said they see anywhere between 8 and 18 stop arm violations a day  more often than not the reason is the driver was distracted.