Outlaw driving with cellphones: Quebec coroner
Pedestrian killed as a result of distracted driver
MONTREAL• A Quebec coroner says it might be time for the province to re-evaluate laws regulating cellphone use in cars after a 75-year-old pedestrian died from being hit by a distracted driver in 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 Wednesday.
The healthy and active 75-year-old would go for the same walk nearly every afternoon around St-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, her hometown northeast of Quebec City.
On Nov. 29, a Sunday, 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 her husband.
It was below freezing, but the street wasn’t particularly icy — when it was, Castonguay would walk on her treadmill instead, or wear the cleats her daughter had bought to prevent her from slipping.
Since the street has no sidewalks and a half-metrewide crust of dirty snow and ice had formed near its edges, Castonguay was forced to walk closer to the middle to the road than she usually would.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., a man turned the corner onto the street and saw her walking 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 the woman while she lay unconscious in the street. She was taken to hospital with a severely fractured skull and pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m.
The driver 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 kilometres per hour when it hit Castonguay. Their investigation ruled out the possibility driver’s vision could have been impaired by the sun, and noted there were no other cars around to distract him.
Using cellphone records, investigators discovered the driver had been on his phone, something he categorically denied despite the records showing the activity.
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 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 an accident, Roussel pointed out that current jurisprudence doesn’t do enough to stop people from using their cellphones when driving.
“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.”
The coroner recommended possible technological solutions — such as jamming cellphone signals when the phone is in a car — to get people off their phones. Even hands-free Bluetooth systems, although much less dangerous, are still a major distraction, she said.
“Mentalities and legislation” need to evolve to put the offence on the same level as driving while under the influence, which is far from being the case,” the report says.
Though Bouchard said she hadn’t read Roussel’s report in detail — she’s been occupied taking care of her father, who fell ill soon after her mother’s death — she added she would like stricter regulation of cellphones in cars.
“I would never want to destroy someone else’s life,” she said. “But I do believe in the notion of responsibility.”