Province increasing fines for distracted driving

YorkRegion.com
March 17, 2014
By Jeremy Grimaldi

Just hours after York Regional Police held a distracted driving blitz in Vaughan to demonstrate how many people don’t follow the law prohibiting texting and driving and talking on cellphones, the province changed the laws again.
Queen’s Park will target distracted drivers with maximum fines of $1,000 and three demerit points.

Transportation Minister Glen Murray introduced a sweeping road safety bill Monday dealing with pedestrians, cyclists, truckers, motorists.

The proposed Keeping Ontario’s Roads Safe Act and supporting amendments to the Highway Traffic Act would:

- increase fines for distracted driving to a range of $300 to $1,000, up from a range of $60 to $500, and assign three demerit points upon conviction;
- increase fines for drivers dooring cyclists to a range of $300 to $1,000, up from a range of $60 to $500, and raise the demerit points from two to three;
- require all drivers to maintain a distance of one metre when passing cyclists; and
- require drivers to yield the whole roadway to pedestrians at school crossings and pedestrian crossovers.

Early Monday morning, York police invited media to witness the number of distracted drivers they see on an hourly basis.

Const. Laura Nicolle noted within about 90 minutes, officers pulled over 20 drivers, some texting and others talking on their cellphones.

“There’s a temptation there ... Lots of people do it, but they shouldn’t,” she said.

She added drivers engaging in texting while driving are as impaired as they would be if their blood alcohol level was .125, which, according to online data, is the equivalent of a 150-pound male driving a car after having five drinks over a few hours.

One driver yorkregion.com spoke with said he was spotted by police after trying and failing to reach someone via cellphone.

“I never do it. Just today, I was calling about work,” said Amnon Kaplan of North York. “This is a good thing they are doing. That’s a lot of money. I’m just relieved I didn’t get a ticket worth that today.”

Since 2009, York Regional Police officers have handed out 14,358 tickets and 4,400 warnings to motorists using hand-held devices while driving.

Many of the police statistics are sobering, including that about 80 per cent of all collisions involve some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.