Everyone knows that talking or texting on the cellphone while driving is totally illegal, but when it comes to other distractions opinions vary.
Is eating and drinking, talking to other people in the vehicle, putting makeup on or sipping your coffee illegal as well and may cost money and demerit points?
There are two separate laws which address distracted driving in Saskatchewan. One of them, cellphone legislation, covers any activities that involve cellphones and drivers. The other one addresses driving without due care and attention.
Things like eating, drinking, smoking, grooming, watching videos, interacting with pets or passengers, using the GPS or looking through maps, adjusting radios or reading fall under this legislation.
“In 26 years of policing, I’ve seen people curling their hair with … curling iron while they were driving a car. I’ve seen people doing their makeup… I’ve had a case of an instance with a gentleman shaving, and not shaving with an electric razor, shaving with shaving cream and the razor. Whether he had a bucket of water or something to rinse off his blade, I’m not certain. You see all kinds of weird things on the road,” said Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur.
According to the legislation, it is not illegal to eat or put lipstick on while operating a vehicle. However, if that behavior takes your attention off the road and away from operating the vehicle and creates a dangerous situation, then police officers will issue a ticket for driving without due care and attention.
Ladouceur noted that they issue quite a few tickets of this kind, yet most of them come out after accidents happen.
“A lot of these tickets are issued in relation to an accident, so after the fact. Not to say we haven’t laid charges in relation to incidents that don’t involve an accident, but the majority you’ll see when it comes to undue care and control is when someone is not paying attention and this results in an accident,” said Ladouceur.
Some of them might be minor accidents, but nonetheless.
A ticket for driving without due care and attention is $280 and four demerit points under the Safe Driver Recognition and Driver Improvement programs. And if issued for the third time within one year, then the vehicle gets seized for seven days.
The chief also pointed out that usually, drivers don’t realize how dangerous even a minor distraction can be.
“People, I don’t know where their minds at sometimes. Because when you are operating the vehicle, thousands of pounds of metal, going at a significant speed, and your eyes aren’t paying attention to where they need to be, it doesn’t become a vehicle anymore, it becomes a weapon quite frankly and it’s very capable of taking someone’s life,” said Ladouceur.
“I investigated incidents where a driver veered to another lane on the highway and collided head-on with another vehicle killing the other female occupant, I’ve seen it first hand in my career. It is devastating. It really is. It doesn’t just ruin the person who is killed or seriously injured; it ruins the other person’s life too, because they have to live with that and face those consequences as well.
It’s never a problem and it’s never serious until it becomes a problem and it’s serious... Everyone thinks they can do it, and their eyes are only off the road for a second. But there is a reason why that legislation exists.”
