Driver Applies Chapstick at Red Light, Gets $200 Ticket

Las Vegas resident Stephanie Fragoso swears she's happy that troopers in Nevada are getting tough on distracted drivers, she's just surprised to find herself at the wrong end of a ticket. The 37-year-old tells CBS affiliate KLAS that she got a $200 citation Wednesday for the high crime of applying lip balm at a red light. The trooper who pulled her over as she was leaving the intersection explained that he did so because she was putting on makeup. "I said it was Chapstick,” she recalls, but she still got the ticket. “He was very sorry; he did not want to give it to me,” Fragoso tells the Washington Post.

Another trooper tells the TV station that the State Patrol is in the midst of a statewide crackdown: Drivers who don't keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel risk a ticket, period. He cites some extreme examples, including one driver seen watching a movie on an iPad strapped to the steering wheel. In comparison, "dealing with pesky chapped lips at a red light seems harmless enough," writes Abby Phillip at the Post. "Not so." (In Virginia, a fifth-grader made headlines for fighting for her right to use Chapstick at school.)