{"id":285369,"date":"2026-05-09T03:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/285369\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T03:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:57:09","slug":"texas-troopers-to-step-up-patrols-for-seat-belt-distracted-driving-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/285369\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas troopers to step up patrols for seat belt, distracted driving violations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:Fox local;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"Fox local\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/232C1E841BC0BB863E0E9B74B574D5BADEBDCEDD7912DF6C56EBCD799BAD61E9\/subgraphmysterio\/resizefill_w0_h40;quality_80;format_webp\/\"\/><\/a>Fri, May 8, 2026 at 8:51 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_fox_aggregated_articles_807\/b1f22e9effd97bbf246c8645485985db.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Texas troopers to step up patrols for seat belt, distracted driving violations<\/p>\n<p>The Brief<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Highway Patrol is stepping up the hunt for drivers who violate seat belt and distracted driving laws.<\/p>\n<p>The increased enforcement runs from May 11-25 as part of the annual All-American Enforcement Campaign.<\/p>\n<p>More than 150,000 tickets and warnings were written during last year\u2019s enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; The Texas Highway Patrol (THP) will soon step up enforcement of seat belt and distracted driving laws.<\/p>\n<p>The annual All-American Enforcement Campaign runs from May 11 to Memorial Day on May 25.<\/p>\n<p>What they&#8217;re saying<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Seat belts save lives \u2013 it\u2019s that simple,&#8221; said THP Chief Bryan Rippee. &#8220;Buckling up is one of the easiest decisions you can make to protect yourself and your loved ones every time you get on the road.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The THP reminded drivers of Texas\u2019 move-over, slow-down law. It requires drivers traveling roads with multiple lanes going in the same direction to move out of the lane closest to emergency vehicles with lights activated. On two-way roads, drivers must slow down to 20 mph below the speed limit.<\/p>\n<p>More than 6,900 tickets have already been issued this year for move-over, slow-down violations, troopers said.<\/p>\n<p>According to troopers, Texas law prohibits using portable wireless devices to read, write or send an electronic message unless the vehicle is stopped.<\/p>\n<p>By the numbers<\/p>\n<p>According to troopers, more than 156,000 tickets and warnings were written during last year\u2019s campaign. Nearly 10,000 of them were for speeding, 3,876 of them were for driving without insurance and 780 of them were for seat belts. Just over 900 felony and fugitive arrests were also made.<\/p>\n<p>The Source<\/p>\n<p>Information in this story came from the Texas Department of Public Safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fri, May 8, 2026 at 8:51 PM UTC Texas troopers to step up patrols for seat belt, distracted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,59042,27,24999,104865,104866],"class_list":["post-285369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-seat-belt","tag-texas","tag-texas-highway-patrol","tag-thp","tag-thp-chief-bryan-rippee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}