A green light usually means one thing: go. But according to Redmond Police, one driver in Washington needed a little extra encouragement to remember that recently, and it came in the form of flashing lights in the rearview mirror.
On June 23 at around 4:55 p.m., a Redmond officer was watching traffic near NE 76th Street and 148th Avenue NE when they spotted a driver holding a phone while stopped at a red light. That alone is illegal under Washington’s distracted driving law, but the situation got even more interesting once the light turned green. Instead of putting the phone down and driving, the person kept scrolling, seemingly unaware that traffic around them had started moving. The officer pulled the driver over for distracted driving, and the whole thing was caught on video.
It is the kind of moment that makes you shake your head and maybe laugh a little, because we have all been stuck behind someone who is clearly more interested in their screen than the road ahead. The difference here is that this driver did not just glance down for a second. They missed an entire light cycle change, which is the automotive equivalent of sleeping through your alarm and then hitting snooze five more times…