Colorado and Wyoming partner on "U Drive. U Text. U Pay" campaign

Glenn Davis, CDOT highway safety manager, speaks at the April 26 press conference.

Over the past decade, distracted driving has become one of the leading causes of vehicle crashes on our nation's roads. In support of April's National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, state and local officials partnered with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for the national U Drive. U Text. U Pay. high-visibility enforcement and educational effort.

The goal of the campaign was to step up enforcement efforts to identify distracted drivers and enforce distracted-driving laws. On April 26, CDOT and the Wyoming Department of Transportation launched the border-to-border high-visibility enforcement and educational effort designed to draw the public's attention to the risks and dangers of distracted driving. Efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving continued throughout April.

According to NHTSA, between 2012 and 2017, nearly 20,000 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver. In fact, there were 3,166 people killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in 2017. While this represents a 9% decrease in distracted driving fatalities from 2016 to 2017, there is clearly more work to be done. In 2017, Wyoming had eight fatalities involving distracted drivers, and Colorado had 70.