"I see so many people when they're sitting at the light texting," Jesse Auner said.
"They go slow," Jenna Kuzmik said. "Sometimes they're just speeding in and out of traffic."
"The other day I was driving down the road and I looked over and I saw a driver, two hands doing her make up," Aubry Damron said. "I was appalled."
Here in Wausau, we've all seen the classic signs of an inattentive driver.
"Sometimes it's just irritating," Kuzmik said.
"When I'm in the car, it's scary," Damron said.
One of the biggest offenders on the roads today are those who text behind the wheel.
"Do I do that? Sometimes," Kuzmik said.
"I believe I'm a pretty attentive driver," Auner said.
"Admittedly, I have," Damron said.
Whether you do or you don't, it affects everyone.
"It certainly can be a life or death situation," Wausau P.D. Lt. Ben Bliven said. "If you're not paying attention to the road and you're paying attention to the phone, your peripheral vision is often obscured."
That means you won't be able to see cars, bikers or pedestrians coming from either direction.
"You wouldn't necessarily know unless you're right next to them," Lisa Rennie said. The problem is, traffic officers like Rennie, have trouble catching people in the act. So far, Wausau police have only cited 13 people since the 2010 state law against texting while driving went into effect. But usually it's after a crash has already occurred. Even then, it's hard for authorities to pinpoint texting as the cause.
"They're not necessarily going to admit to hitting the guy in front of them because they were texting on their phone," Rennie said.
A new TV campaign from AT&T that features real people who have lost loved ones to car crashes that involved text messages, or been involved in one themselves, hopes, when the law isn't enough, the powerful real-life messages will stop others' text messages from sending.
"There are so many different scenarios where you could be looking down at your phone to send a text message or dialing your phone and really have some really bad repercussions," Bliven said.
Wis. also has an inattentive driver law that allows officers to pull someone over who isn't paying attention to the road. That can include anything from texting, changing the radio, eating or putting on make up.
Wausau Police have issued a number of these citations over the past five years:
2007: 92
2008: 84
2009: 91
2010: 83
2011: 120
Jan 2012-now: 69
