Distracted Driving Crackdown
Posted Feb 13, 2012 04:00:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The OPP launch a campaign against distracted driving this week.
That means officers will be educating, enforcing, and being visible in public to make sure drivers eyes are on the roads and not on their smart-phones.
In 2011, the OPP laid almost 17, 000 distracted driving charges.
Cambridge OPP Detachment Commander John Mraud tells 570 News using your phone while driving a vehicle is a serious offence, “in 2011, there was 7, 533 collisions on OPP patrolled roads where drivers were seen to be inattentive at the time. That resulted in 56 people losing their lives and 1, 369 people being injured.”
People caught driving distracted face a $155 fine.
Mraud suggests pulling over where it’s safe, and then check your email and make that phone call.
“We’ll be looking for people with cell-phones or smart-phones in their hands, their heads are down, so you can draw an inference that they may be texting or sending an email or something like that which is taking their eyes off the road. Also, if their car is weaving or excessively breaking, or something that would draw out attention to the vehicle, which would cause us to speed up, have a look, and see what’s going on,” said Mraud.
Drivers will see more officers standing on highway ramps, “and while they’re looking for the cell phone (violators) they’ll be looking seat-belt violators at the same time.”
Mraud said “this is something that we’re searching for year round, it’s just we want to make a focus of (distracted driving) the week of February 13th through the 19th.”
