PAPD’s Rickey Antoine talks about driving on Facebook Live

Published 12:07 pm Monday, December 10, 2018

Speeding and driver inattention are the top two problems with Southeast Texas drivers.

Port Arthur Police Officer Rickey Antoine said the above two issues lead to a majority of automobile crashes in the area.

“People just can’t seem to disassociate themselves from their phones while driving. You deal with it while outside the vehicle and now inside the vehicle,” Antoine, author of the column “Ask a Cop” which runs on Tuesdays in The Port Arthur News, said during a Facebook live event recently.

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And while driving while under the influence is obviously a very illegal, very dangerous thing a driver can do, texting while driving has some eye-opening statistics as well.

“It can lead to a deadly crash but also injuries. It’s not always death that results in somebody being distracted while driving,” he said. “You talk about people injured. Losing limbs.”

And the victims are usually people working, which means a household is now affected due to a loss of income.

Antoine fielded a question from a viewer who heard that texting and driving was worse than driving while intoxicated.

“That’s totally accurate,” he said.

A person is up to 5 times more likely to be in a crash when impaired on an intoxicating substance as opposed to not being impaired.

But a person texting is between eight to 32 times more likely to be in a crash. Texting is worse during the time span it occurs. A phone can be put down but if a person is already intoxicated, they can’t just ‘stop’ being intoxicated.

Antoine admits he isn’t perfect and he too has made a not-so-smart move while driving.

“I’ve texted before, and what made me stop, I was texting while going around a curb. This is before it (texting and driving) got all big,” he said. “I was texting and hit the curb — boom. It shocked me and I thought ‘what if there was a person?’ what if there was a kid?’ Now Rickey puts the phone down.”

Fender bender in private parking lots/store lots

“In Texas you’re not going to find a police department that will file a motor vehicle crash report in a private lot. We don’t investigate those,” he said in response to a viewer’s question.

Police do investigate parking in a fire zone, handicapped parking issues and DWI’s.

“If you get in a crash, we’re coming. If you call us we’re going even if we know there’s nothing we can do. If you’re adamant, he backed up and hit me, we can help you exchange insurance information and then the insurance companies will fight over it.”

But if there is an injury in the above-mentioned scenario, police will do a report.

Teaching others to drive

Antoine said he just doesn’t have the kind of patience needed to teach someone to drive. Then he told of teaching his daughter.

“I tried to teach my daughter first. She’s two years older than my son. She scared the living daylights out of me. I sent her to school. She couldn’t get the difference between the gas pedal and the brake. We’re going, I’m screaming and she’s screaming at me about to have a panic attack,” he said with a laugh. “I know there’s somebody who’s got a whole lot of patience so I sent her to the school.”

Antoine isn’t too keen on a parent teaching their own child everything about driving, A to Z, he said. Sometimes they need to be with their peers while learning. They can be in the back seat and see the peer make a mistake and the instructor correct them and explain what needs to be done.

Antoine covered a variety of topics including what to do if stopped, handguns in vehicles and more which can be seen on The Port Arthur News Facebook page.