Police write more tickets this year during distracted driving campaign

BOSTON — During their month-long crack down on distracted driving, state police wrote 2,224 tickets, a jump from last's years campaign.

Police across the state cracked down on distracted driving during April, setting up special patrols to catch offenders.

Massachusetts State Police tickets:

2,224 - April 2016

1,993 - April 2015

FOX25 also looked at the months leading up to April and found that between January 2016 and the end of March 2016, all police agencies statewide wrote just 971 tickets for distracted driving.

Just this week, a 16-year-old hit another car head-on while allegedly texting and driving, severely injuring a woman in the other vehicle. Arbella Insurance has recently tried to show teens just how dangerous texting and driving is by putting teens in front of simulator.

"They say it's really changing their attitude.  They realize how quickly in a matter of one or two seconds they can go from being safe to being in a terrible accident," said John Donohue, CEO of Arbella.

But when it comes to enforcing the law, Donohue says that tickets won’t necessarily change behavior.

"The best thing is education and peer pressure among students - get them to start a conversation and continue the conversation on how dangerous this is," he said.

Federal traffic leaders in Washington, D.C. said that 21-percent of the deadly car crashes involving teens who are 16 to 19 were the result of using a cell phone.

Cox Media Group