A 16-year-old Bellevue girl was one of the first people in the state to be ticketed under a new law prohibiting texting while driving.
The teen was ticketed July 15, the first day the state ban went into effect, said Capt. Herb Evers of the Bellevue Police Department.
"After knocking down a street sign, the girl nearly hit another car head on," Evers said. "She could have been seriously hurt or she could have badly injured someone else."
Evers said the teenager was westbound on Nebraska Highway 370 near Wilshire Avenue when she looked down to erase a text. The car she was driving went up on a dividing island and sheared off a traffic sign before coming to a rest back in the road.
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A police officer found the phone in the car with a text message on its screen. The teen told the officer she was in the midst of erasing the text before she hit the sign.
The girl faces a $200 fine and the loss of three points on her driver’s license.
http://omaha.com/article/20100720/NEWS97/100729989#first-texting-tickets-issued