Texting while driving could lead to $1,000 fine, 3 demerits

[AL3RT]

Rob have you seen any stats on the number of tickets issued vs. tickets contested in court? I heard through the grapevine that some 75% or so were paid outright, and that less than 5% made it to trial. But, I don't have a concrete source for that and it would be interesting to see the numbers.

Doesn't your HQ update the staff on the quarterly performance and stats?

 

[Bike Cop]

Doesn't your HQ update the staff on the quarterly performance and stats?

No, probably because 99% of our officers would delete it before reading it. And to be honest, stats analysis is probably way above my pay grade anyway. Interesting point earlier by Rob though, distracted driving in all its various forms should be easily covered by the careless driving section. The fines are approaching the same threshold and I'm sure the demerit points aren't far behind. I can only suspect cellphones have their own section to close off loopholes that are left by such a general definition as s. 130. Also the political motivator to say "look what we did".

Fighting the text and drive crowd is an uphill battle at this point. It is rampant, but people are getting better at hiding it. I saw a guy sleeve his cellphone the other day, like he was some sort of magician... it was impressive. And don't even ask me why we have new unmarked vehicles to enforce this law in particular, and yet we put out a media release describing them and showing the public pictures. Smoke and mirrors.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

No, probably because 99% of our officers would delete it before reading it. And to be honest, stats analysis is probably way above my pay grade anyway. Interesting point earlier by Rob though, distracted driving in all its various forms should be easily covered by the careless driving section. The fines are approaching the same threshold and I'm sure the demerit points aren't far behind. I can only suspect cellphones have their own section to close off loopholes that are left by such a general definition as s. 130. Also the political motivator to say "look what we did".

Fighting the text and drive crowd is an uphill battle at this point. It is rampant, but people are getting better at hiding it. I saw a guy sleeve his cellphone the other day, like he was some sort of magician... it was impressive. And don't even ask me why we have new unmarked vehicles to enforce this law in particular, and yet we put out a media release describing them and showing the public pictures. Smoke and mirrors.

I maintain that Section 130 could have easily been updated to include a phrase such as, "... activities such as, but not limited to..." in order to cover cell phone use while driving. Unfortunately the whole thing got mired in the Michael Bryant, "We will crush your cars!" rhetoric, as a direct result of a small number of high profile cases that were all ultimately dealt with using existing Criminal Code sections, and that in at least one case could as easily have resulted in the 'poor defenseless parents of a small child' being roasted over the coals for impaired operation, just as easily as it did the young men driving the other vehicles being slammed for street racing.

As with politicians, senior police officials must give the appearance of 'doing something to stem the tide.' This, whether the 'tide' really exists or not.