Quebec coroner calls out danger of cellphones
Suggests devices should be completely banned while driving
A Quebec coroner says it might be time the province re-evaluates laws regulating cellphone usage in cars after a 75-year-old pedestrian died from being hit by a distracted driver last November.
“Cellphones, whether we’re manipulating them or not, are dangerous while driving motorized vehicles and should possibly be completely banned,” coroner Renée Roussel wrote in her report on the death of Florilda Castonguay, made public on Wednesday.
A healthy and active 75-yearold, Castonguay would go for the same walk nearly every afternoon around St-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, her hometown northeast of Quebec City.
On Nov. 29 of last year, after going out for breakfast with her husband and spending her Sunday shopping for gifts for their grandchildren, she set out for her walk around the same time she would every day: before the sun went down, and early enough to be home in time to cook dinner for the couple.
It was below freezing, but the street wasn’t particularly icy — when it was, Castonguay would walk on her treadmill instead, or wear the pair of cleats her daughter had bought her to prevent her from slipping.
Since the street has no sidewalks and a two-foot wide crust of dirty snow and ice had formed near its edges, Castonguay had been forced to walk closer to the middle than she usually would.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., a man turned the corner onto the street and saw her walking some 50 metres away, in the same direction he was driving, he later told police.
Castonguay was struck from behind only seconds later, the car’s bumper hitting the back of her knees and sending her tumbling over the car. Witnesses and the driver called for an ambulance, and tended to her while she lay unconscious in the street. She was brought to a hospital with a severely fractured skull and pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m.
The driver later told police he got distracted by his passenger and could only hit the brakes at the last second, the coroner’s report says. The length of the skid marks led police to believe the car was going about 30 km/h on impact. Their investigation ruled out that his vision could have been impaired by the sun, and noted that there weren’t any other cars around to distract him.
Using cellphone records, investigators determined the driver had been distracted by his phone, something he categorically denied despite the records showing activity on his phone.
Castonguay’s family doesn’t know what else could have caused the accident.
“It’s almost unthinkable that something like this could happen on that street,” her daughter, Sonia Bouchard, said on Wednesday. The street is so quiet and safe, she said, it’s where her family would bring their young children for walks.
Though her coroner’s report rules Castonguay’s death to be accidental, Roussel pointed out that current jurisprudence isn’t dissuasive enough to get drivers to stop using their cellphones behind the wheel.
“There are basically no cases in front of the courts that have held a person criminally responsible for the death of another because they were using their cellphones while driving,” Roussel wrote. “Regardless of the consequences of their actions, the worst a driver found guilty can face is a fine and a few demerit points.”
Roussel recommended possible technological solutions — the likes of jamming cellphone signals when the phone is in a car — to get people off their phones. She noted that even hands-free Bluetooth systems, although much less dangerous, are still a major distraction.
“Mentalities and legislation” need to evolve to put the offence on the same level as driving while under the influence, the report says, “which is far from being the case.”
Though Bouchard said she hadn’t read over Roussel’s report in detail — she’s been occupied taking care of her father, who fell ill shortly after her mother’s death — she said she agreed with stricter regulations around cellphones being used in cars.
“I would never want to destroy someone else’s life,” she repeated. “But I do believe in the notion of responsibility.”