Burlington cop issues 5,000th ticket for distracted driving

A Halton Regional Police Const. Norm Deneault recently issued his 5,000th ticket for distracted driving.

He reached this milestone on Aug. 18 when he handed a ticket to a Burlington driver who already had a previous conviction for using his phone while driving.

Deneault, who has spent 23 years with Halton police and had 10 years with Toronto police before that, said he recognized the chaos distracted driving was causing on local roads and started focusing on it in his patrols in 2010, shortly after new provincial legislation made it an offence.

He said that while he enjoys doing his job and finds it rewarding, the fact that he has issued 5,000 tickets is not exactly reason to celebrate.

“If I wasn’t able to reach that level that would be fantastic because that would mean people weren’t out there doing this,” he said.

Distracted driving has become a key focus for Halton police and Deneault, who said it is now responsible for more deaths on Ontario’s roads than impaired driving.

He said when the law first changed, distracted drivers were easy to spot because they made no effort to conceal the fact they were talking on their cellphones and an officer in an unmarked cruiser had little difficulty catching them in the act.

Deneault said the arrival of higher fines and the growing popularity of texting eventually resulted in a new and more dangerous type of distracted driver, which he refers to as “lappers.”

“The lappers are the people that are holding the cellphone in their hand, but are hiding it down in their laps,” said Deneault. “You see their head bobbing up and down, up and down and their eyes aren’t on the road, and that is why we are having so many rear-end collisions.”