Drivers in Rocky View County need to hang up or pay up.
Under the new Traffic Safety Act introduced Sept. 1, Bill 16 has legislated people must put cell phones down, stop fiddling with GPS devices and discontinue grooming while driving. If they choose not to comply, they will be fined $172 under the Traffic Safety Act.
The law was introduced by Calgary-Hays MLA and former police sergeant Art Johnston in 2008. He said some will embrace the law and some won’t, but the impact will be noticeable.
“Highways are going to be safer,” said Johnston.
Other restrictions include texting, touching an mp3 player, reading, writing, drawing, eating a meal, using laptops and playing hand-held video games. However, hands-free cell phones are legal, as is smoking, drinking coffee, talking with passengers, eating snacks and having pets in the car.
“I’ve been trying to comply since it came out, that’s why I got Bluetooth,” said Rocky View County Reeve Rolly Ashdown. “When you’re dialing and stuff like that, it’s as distracting as holding a phone....”
Ashdown said laws like this are geared more toward those who “make bad decisions” and isn’t sad to see people with less privilege behind the wheel.
“People sending texts and emails are a major distraction,” he said. “We support whatever laws there are, unless they cause our people harm or discomfort of some kind, and this doesn’t.”
Johnston said the infractions aren’t simply a cash grab and decried such accusations as “ridiculous.”
“As long as you’re not doing anything wrong, there’s nothing to worry about,” he said.
With 23 years in the Calgary Police Service, Johnston said he had to make multiple trips to families’ homes, letting them know a loved one died because of careless actions.
“I’ve seen a lot of driving and inappropriate behaviour and saw lots that needed to be changed,” he said.
Today’s biggest distraction is texting and talking on cell phones, according to Johnston, who uses a Bluetooth device when he drives. He said the all-out ban on communications fell through during negotiations of the legislation being drafted.
“It took me three years to get my colleagues on board with this,” he said. “It’s like anything else, sometimes you can give a bit and get a little.”
Many critics of the new law said the Province had a chance to make roads safe and failed to capitalize.
“Science tells us that there’s absolutely no difference with the danger of hand cells and hands-free,” said Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti, injury researcher and emergency physician at the University of Alberta. “It’s the conversation that’s the distraction.”
Francescutti said more than 50 per cent of the brain is activated when it’s listening and people are not focusing on the road ahead of them.
“You will focus on that and you won’t see the child come out or the light turn red,” said Francescutti.
Conversation between two people in a car is much different since the passenger can change their cadence, pitch and tone depending on what is happening on the road, added Francescutti.
The Province had an opportunity to become a national leader in traffic safety, yet fell short, by not including hands-free devices in the law, according to the doctor.
County drivers appear accepting of the new law.
“Some people just can’t do it (texting and driving),” said James Bell of Langdon.
Bell said friends of his have been involved in car accidents because of texting behind the wheel and he is glad to see the new law in place.
He called the $172 fine a “good start.”
Dicksey Higgins lives in Cochrane and said drivers are more distracted behind the wheel these days.
“There’s a lot of distracted drivers, myself included,” said Higgins, adding it’s easy to spot someone who is distracted.
“They’re going slower, they’re talking on the phone. I think even talking on the phone is going to be distracting, hands-free or not.”
Higgins said she plans to stop talking on a cell phone or hands-free device and said the fine is a good deterrent for drivers, as well.
“Unless you make it substantial, people aren’t going to take it seriously,” she said.
Those operating police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and gas disconnection units are exempt from the new law.
The law extends to people riding bicycles, motorcycles, motor homes, truck tractors and farm vehicles.
For more information, visit www.transportation.alberta.ca
