Ontario plans smackdown on distracted driving
New laws will jack up fines, demerits and licence suspensions — it’s about time
Ontario is about to get tough.
Every Canadian province and territory has laws in place regarding distracted driving.
For years, they were there to stop people taking their eyes off the road to spill hot coffee in their lap, futz about with a navigation system, do their makeup or eat cereal. But of course those distractions are peanuts in the face of what has become the No. 1 scourge of our roadways: hand-held phones and entertainment devices. We are entertaining — and distracting — ourselves to death.
On Jan. 1, Ontario will officially be the worst place in the country to get busted texting (or talking, dialing or emailing) behind the wheel. For a first offence, you will be charged $1,000, get three demerit points and face a threeday licence suspension.
Do it again, and for your second offence, you’re looking at a $2,000 fine, six demerit points and a seven-day suspension. Dumb enough to do it a third time? That will be $3,000 and a 30-day licence suspension.
Remember through all of this, your insurance company will no doubt be dumping you like a hot potato or charging you up the wazoo. You’ll probably have to sell your car to afford your new rates. Note: Unlike stunt-driving charges, a distracted-driving suspension is not roadside; it applies only after conviction.
According to U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the statistics reported in nearly every province, distracted driving has become the No. 1 menace on our roads, accounting for between a quarter and a third of fatalities.
Speeding and impaired drivers are still doing much damage, but it’s the phones that are the most dangerous.
The numbers are rising, despite campaign after campaign, and fines that go up.
Ontario, by introducing licence suspensions alongside those big, big fines is doing the only thing that might rip the phone from peoples’ hands.
Manitoba introduced stricter laws in November of 2018, in answer to a spike in crashes involving distracted behaviour.
They had 4,780 crashes in 2012, and that went to 15,403 in 2017. In that province, your first arrest will result in a three-day suspension, a $672 fine and five demerit points. The second will cost you the same, but with a seven-day suspension.
For years, Quebec had the most lenient fine: $80 to $100. Now?
It has recently gone to $480 to $1,034, and that can be doubled for a second offence. These fines are accompanied by suspensions that escalate from three days, to seven and then to 30, accordingly. Every government is starting to tighten up.
Police will tell you they’ve long known that no matter how stringent impaired driving laws become, there will always be a hardcore base that will drive drunk or stoned, with or without a licence, regardless of the threat of punishment.
Everybody who knows of an addict, to either alcohol or drugs, is not surprised by this.
But cellphones? Scientists aren’t surprised. The ping of an incoming text or call sets off dopamine receptors in your brain. No, you’re not going crazy when you are incapable of not looking at your phone. It’s your brain reacting like it would to any reward; if you know it’s there, you can’t not look. The problem is that we are never without our phones.
Most impaired-driving crashes happen on weekends, around holidays, at night. Distracted driving is a 24/7, 365 day thing.
Charges of a few hundred bucks weren’t stopping much.
In British Columbia, a driver was charged twice within seven minutes. We are officially post-reason.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are three types of distracted driving: visual, manual and cognitive. The first is taking your eyes off the road, the second is taking your hands off the wheel, and the third is taking your mind off driving.
Being distracted by a phone often becomes all three, making it easily the most deadly. Using your phone hands-free is not much better, because of the cognitive disconnect.
Your brain is on the call, not your driving.
The word “accident” rarely applies on our roadways, and I won’t use the term. Nearly every single crash is preventable. The sad part is we’ve gone from people thinking its OK to blame the weather or the guy ahead stopping too fast, to people thinking they can reply to a text they just can’t resist reading.
Steep fines and suspensions might help you resist.
But stopping the most deadly behaviour on our roads should be reason enough.
Personally, I think a licence suspension isn’t enough — if you get caught, they should take the phone along with the licence.