The message isn’t getting through – don’t drive and talk on a handheld cellphone. If you do, you risk a $167 ticket, or worse, killing someone you didn’t see on the road.
Teenage girls, are you listening?
You’re the worst offenders.
Keeping motorists off their handheld cellphones is a battle Ridge Meadows RCMP wage constantly, but unsuccessfully, given the 180 ticketed this February is three times the 61 issued in February 2011, although police had two more members on traffic duty this year.
“It’s the teenage girls, let’s put it bluntly,” says Sgt. Dale Somerville.
“Teenage girls are the worst offenders because they can’t give up that cellphone.
“And the working-class guys who lives on the phone, the real estate agents, the construction workers going from site to site, these guys just can’t give up the phone.”
Hands-free devices only cost about $60, he tells them. “Go buy one.”
When looked at region-wide, the story’s the same. Police wrote 4,449 tickets across the region in February, almost double the 2,300 issued in February 2011, according to the RCMP’s Lower Mainland traffic services division.
Somerville pointed out that distracted driving is the No. 2 priority for traffic cops across the province, after drunk driving.
In Maple Ridge, police like to nab the cellphone drivers in the downtown area, with a plain clothes officer spotting a culprit at an intersection, then radioing ahead so another officer can make the collar. One of their favourite spots is 222nd and 223rd streets on Dewdney Trunk Road.
For drivers who think they can talk on a handheld cellphone and still be aware of what’s going on the road, the cops’ daily experience shows otherwise.
“We’ll have members pull up to people right beside them at a stop light. They’ll be chatting away on the phone and because they’re so busy paying attention on the phone, they don’t see this marked police car.
“We’ll eventually tap on the window – and say – hello.”
According to the RCMP’s Lower Mainland traffic services, distracted driving contributed to 27 fatal accidents last year.
Somerville also rides one of the police bikes during the summer and writes many tickets by just pulling up beside motorists chatting away because they don’t even see the motorcycle.
He agrees that motorists checking their cellphone messages while stopped at traffic lights isn’t as bad as driving while talking, but says motorists should be focused on the traffic light. Cellphone conversations using hands-free devices are legal, but they should be kept brief and involved discussions avoided, he adds.
Although the no-hand-held cellphone law has been in place since January 2010, the statistics are discouraging.
“It’s becoming clear to us that there’s a certain percentage of the population that isn’t listening to us. If you’re not going to listen, on top of the monetary fine, maybe there should be some points added to it.”
Novice drivers who still have N get three demerit points tacked on to their licences if ticketed for cellphone use. He favours adding those points to Class 5 drivers. Currently, drivers busted for actually texting while driving, can get dinged three points, although that’s a difficult charge to prove.
The message also has to get to young people because they’re more connected to the cyber world. The cellphone does not belong in the car and if it is, it has to be turned off.
You can be disconnected from the wired world for the time of the car trip, he adds.
“We didn’t have them 20 years ago and we all got along fine then.”
Danny Kok, with Driving Unlimited at the Pitt Meadows Regional Airport, said instructors discuss cellphone use during the classroom sessions for teens who are taking driver training.
Kids are involved in those discussions and are aware of the dangers of cellphone use and come up with their solutions to preventing that, so he hopes that carries on once they’re on the road. The fairly recent ban on handheld cellphone use could explain the compliance problems, he added.
Although they’re exempt from the cellphone ban, the RCMP have a policy against unnecessary cellphone use by their members, unless it’s an emergency. That’s why police cars have radios, Somerville says. People complain when they see officers doing the same thing for which they’re writing tickets.
“You see a member in a marked police car talking on the phone, call me directly because I want to know about it.”
