A no-cellphone zone
The Star got a first-hand look at the hunt for distracted drivers
Toronto police are watching, from special elevated vans, streetcars and their bikes, waiting for you to pick up your phone while driving.
That’s the message they want motorists to get during a weeklong distracted-driving blitz aimed at getting people to put down their devices and focus on the road.
The Star went on a ride-along Mon- day to get a first-hand look at the hunt for distracted drivers, hopping into a white 10-seater van that lets cops see into passing cars. Traffic Services is borrowing two from other areas of the police service, as well as an unmarked pickup truck.
Drivers have become more savvy about flouting the law, says Sgt. Brett Moore, as a fellow officer steers the van along Lake Shore Blvd.
“Folks inherently know that distract- ed driving is wrong, and in order not to be so blatant to have (their phone) up to their ear, they’re dropping it down to their lap,” he says.
“These lap-lookers, they’re not kidding anybody.”
The new zero-tolerance campaign follows the province’s stricter penalties for distracted driving, which came into effect Jan 1.
There’s now a minimum $615 fine, three-day licence suspension and three demerit points, upon conviction, for a first offence. The fines increase to a maximum of $2,000 and $3,000 for second and third convictions, respectively.
Upon a third offence, novice drivers lose their licences entirely and have to start at the bottom of the graduated licensing system.
On Wednesday, officers will be watching from streetcars, calling on radios to officers trailing them in police vehicles who can intercept people spotted using their phones. Cops in regular cars, on foot and on bikes will also be looking out.
The transit technique is borrowed from police in Waterloo.
“I call it R And D: Rip off and duplicate. We’re not too proud to rip off good ideas and give full credit,” Moore says.
Though distracted driving laws have been on the books for almost a decade, motorists keep doing it.
“We’re creatures of habit,” Moore says. “It’s not getting better.”
Provincial data on 2013 collisions show one person is injured in a distracted-driving collision every half-hour, and a driver using a phone is four times more likely to crash than a driver who’s not.
Sgt. Alex Crews, also with Traffic Services, says he usually stops an offender “within 15 minutes” after he starts looking for them.
He caught a driver on Monday in a Range Rover who was talking on a Bluetooth while scrolling through texts on his phone at the same time.
It’s OK to talk on a hands-free device like a Bluetooth, and have a phone or GPS that’s securely mounted, as long as you’re not touching it, aside from starting or ending a hands-free call.
The new harsher penalties apply just to devices, but there are other ways to be distracted, from applying makeup to eating, Crews adds.
“Let’s say you’re driving along and you have a sandwich and you take a bite, no issues. It’s when you’ve got the triple cheeseburger and you’re dripping mayo and ketchup and mustard into your lap and you’re wiping it down and, oh my goodness, you rear-end somebody,” he says.
That would be considered careless driving.
At one point the van passes a driver glancing down near St. Lawrence Market. But officers need to see someone using their phone to bring a charge, Moore says.
Toronto police investigated 10,000 instances of possible distracted driving in 2018 — a rate of about 27 a day.
Several tickets were issued Monday morning.
Almost all of them cried after being fined — something Moore has little patience for.
“It’s that instant remorse, too little too late,” he says.
“There should be no crying in distracted driving.”
Instead of tears after the fact, Moore wants to see people “make a change” now, by investing in a device to properly secure their phones.
“It’s just a matter of time,” he says. “The more times that you drive distracted, use your device, text, phone, whatever ... one day your number will come up and you’re going to cause a collision.”