By Patrick Baron

BLOOMINGTON – April is national Distracted Driving Awareness month, and the Bloomington Police Department is reminding all drivers to put down the phone and focus on the roads.

Bloomington Police Department spokesman Elias Mendiola said simply having your phone on while driving can be a distraction.

“Even if you have a cell phone on and you’re using a hands-free device, unfortunately it’s been through documentation and studies that have been done, that you’re actually missing what you’re actually seeing around you,” Mendiola explained.

Mendiola said if you have to reach out to someone, pull over to a rest stop or gas station to park at before you pull out your phone. He explained law requires any usage of a phone to be hands-free, although some people either aren’t aware of that law or try to tiptoe around it.

“There’s still individuals that have not fully embraced that and they will either hold their device very low or they will in fact plead ignorance, ‘oh I didn’t know that was a law’, our officers have heard that,” said Mendiola.

Mendiola said the safest thing to do is to have your phone turned off while driving. He believes since the law went into effect, there has been a decrease in distracted driving.

Patrick Baron can be reached at [email protected].