The month-long police crackdown on driving while texting or talking on a cell phone was a success in that it sent the message that this dangerous activity needs to be taken seriously by drivers. Nearly 13,000 drivers were ticketed in the statewide effort and subject to fines ranging from $150 to $500, depending on how many times they had been caught.

Fifty police departments from all parts of the state took part in the April campaign aimed at not only making arrests, but also calling attention to this foolhardy activity. The extra police involvement needed for the campaign was financed by a $2.3 million grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and without the extra funds it cannot continue at this pace.

But we expect that police departments are impressed by the numbers and appreciate how necessary it is to deal effectively with this public safety threat. The highly distracting practice is far too common and too dangerous to be left to occasional crackdowns and should become an integral part of regular police work.

While studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have indicated drinking and driving by teenagers has declined in recent years, texting and using cell phones while driving have skyrocketed. As many as 80 percent of the drivers between 16 and 20 admit to texting or using handheld phones while driving and some studies indicate teenage deaths caused by these practices now rival the statistics for drunk-driving fatalities.

Studies have revealed that a person texting or reading a message while driving can take his eyes off the road for as long as five seconds and in those five seconds, a car being driven 55 miles per hour can travel hundreds of feet. When this is accomplished without serious consequences, it can only be attributed to luck.

That should be reason enough for making every month one devoted to ridding us of this deadly side effect of technological progress. We have a tendency here and across the nation to wait for a terrible event before responding, as in the increased interest in body cameras for police officers. We already have a crisis in the misuse of these automobile devices and shouldn’t wait for an epidemic of fatalities.