If you’re prone to using your phone behind the wheel, you could end up driving yourself out of money. There will be a maximum $1K fine and three demerit points for drivers who text, email or talk on handheld phone
Ontario has passed new legislation to increase penalties for drivers who text or use a handheld phone, impose a one-metre distance rule between vehicles and bicycles, and hike fines for "dooring" a cyclist. The law passed third reading this Tuesday morning and will soon be signed into law.
Ontario’s distracted driving penalties are now some of the strictest in the world, but the bill also deals with how drivers interact with cyclists. It also allows cities to build more types of bike lanes and it imposes new fines on cyclists who refuse to light up their bikes.
The fines for distracted driving has increased from the old range of $60 to $500 to between $300 to $1,000 plus three demerit points. It is interesting to note that using handheld electronic devices while driving has been outlawed in Ontario since 2009, except for 911 emergency calls.
Fines for opening a door in front of a bicyclist will also increase to the same amounts as distracted driving, and drivers must leave a one-metre distance when passing bicyclists. Drivers will also have to wait until pedestrians completely cross the road whether it be school crossings or crosswalks with pedestrian-operated lights, and not yield just half the roadway as mandated under the old law.
The recent reform on distracted driving penalties stems from the growing concern that distracted driving is what the police has dubbed ‘the No. 1 killer on the roads’, accounting for more deaths than impaired driving or speed-related collisions. The Ontario Provincial Police recently released statistics that showed 45 out of 168 vehicle-related deaths in 2013 were caused by distracted driving, and while we’re less than halfway through 2015, the OPP says that there have already been 12 distracted driving-related deaths. If this number keeps climbing, the OPP suggest it’ll be the “seventh consecutive year in which inattentive driving surpasses impaired driving as a causal factor in the fatal collisions.”
The province’s Minister of Transportation, said of the new law, “Ontario’s roads are among the safest in North America and this new legislation is intended to keep it that way. I look forward to continued collaboration with our law enforcement and other dedicated road safety partners to implement these measures.”
These new fines “will come into force over the coming months”. The government states that using any of the following devices, including an iPod, GPS, MP3 player, cell phone, smartphone, laptop or portable DVD player will result in a fine, though there’s no mention of a certain smartwatch yet.
