Driving While Using Hand Held Devices

Any chance you might do another article on handheld device usage in BC? The first rider death of 2012 in Kelowna was caused by driver inattention to cell phone usage. I've attached a photo that was just taken this Saturday. We actually took several - I was driving, my wife was operating the camera. This particular one clearly shows what has the driver's attention. Traffic was not at a standstill - it was flowing at 60 km/h, and there was plenty of vehicles around on a six-lane highway.

There's not much that I can add to this person's request to continue to highlight the dangers of taking your attention away from the driving task. He's clearly had enough of seeing this selfish, uncaring behaviour around himself and his family when he is driving and intends to do something about it. If someone from the Kelowna Detachment takes action it is going to be very difficult for this driver to explain away his actions! I just hope that they don't end up becoming part of a road rage incident when the offending driver realizes that a photo has been taken.

Is any call or text so important that you have to respond to it while driving? If you must say yes, you are fooling yourself and endangering everyone.

Reference Links and Videos:

Distracted Driving

I applaud this person for reporting this incident to the police. It is unfortunately only one of many incidents that are witnessed on a daily basis.

As long as we continue to install devices in vehicles that distract from a driver's primary duty of keeping their eyes on the road. I also see daily drivers programming their GPS device. These devices need to be designed to have programming disabled when the vehicle is in gear.

One also has to look at our local Police Constables. I witnessed an elderly lady with a walker come fairly close to being hit by a marked police car while in a crosswalk. The RCMP member was so busy trying to read his mobile data terminal that he was not watching the road. Several people on the street took the number off the police unit but wether it was ever reported I don't know.

cell phone ONLY,,,Try this

As a Taxi Driver in Cranbrook BC,, On a hand held mic.

My Owner,,expects us to drive customers,,answer the phones,,write down adresses,,answer the customers quetions,,,ALL WHILE TRYING TO DRIVE.

I call it MEGA MULTITASKING,,espesally when I allready have a paying customer in my taxi.

Beiing an Airtraffic Controller,at the busyest airport,,would be far less distracting,,as they only have ONE JOB,,

Come try doiing 3 or 4 jobs at the same time you are operating a motor vehical,,on the streets and hwys.

And if you can,t do all that at once,,the owner of the taxi company,gives you a warning Termination Notice.

So How Come taxi drivers are VOID from the new distracted driving LAW?

Unsafe Driving Practices