“Electronic Device Legislation”

hwybear wrote:78.1 (1) No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway while holding or using a hand-held wireless communication device or other prescribed device that is capable of receiving or transmitting telephone communications, electronic data, mail or text messages.

Entertainment devices

(2) No person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway while holding or using a hand-held electronic entertainment device or other prescribed device the primary use of which is unrelated to the safe operation of the motor vehicle.

Ok, hypothetical scenarios of what might go wrong under (1).

1. I'm driving down the road and my wife (I'm not married, but this all hypothetical) asks me to give her my phone to call her mother. As I reach for the phone and hand it over to her, the cop sees me and writes me a ticket.

2. Phone rings, I look at the screen and see it is my mother-in-law. As I hand over the phone to the wife, the cop nabs me.

3. I'm driving down the road on a motorcycle at night and the light burns out. My cameraphone has a good light on it from camera flash, so I pull it out and fire up the light to see where I'm going....

Under (2), GPS is not exactly needed to safely operate a vehicle...

Ahh this brings up some good technical questions.

First of all isnt a GPS an wireless communication device capable of sending data. A blackberry does that to? Whats the difference. Both are distracting.

Oh wait but what if i decide to use a GPS program on my blackberry.

The built in one is safe but the phone one is not?

I thought all this was dangerous. But it also excludes tracking systems?

Can someone explain to me what training or qualifications UPS drivers or truckers have that would allow them to use such a device while operating a vehicle?

This would qualify.

Technically i could touch a 407 transponder as well while entering the highway to and be charged as this device that transmits data.

What if i dont have an in car GPS and need to use google maps to find my way?

Maybe ill pull over and twitter Dalton McGuinty to find my way.

Wait a screen visible to the driver.

So what if you had a son in the car who was playing a game boy, PSP, or watching a video.

Would this now be illegal as this would be visible to you.

Maybe tinted windows will be a good option for some people.

Besides if you got pulled over on the 401, what is stopping you from saying you were about to dial *OPP to report a dangerous driver or something you saw on the highway?

Man this legislation is confusing.

Bookm, ya i agree about insurance rates. I don't buy it either.

I wish insurance was not the law. Or people had more choice in selecting coverage without others ruling and mandating minimum this X minimum that Z, etc. I honestly wonder how much insurance rates would be in a truely "free market system" in which drivers had more control over what they wanted, and where insurance was not the law or forced to have. Maybee those drivers that have such a bad record that pay high premiums would not be able to afford insurance, therefore drive alot more careful as they don't want to be in an accident without it?

I think insurance gives people a false sense of security.

Anyways back to this i think people will do what they can get away with as always. For example you could just put the phone on speaker and rest it in your lap. Or at night you could turn off the screen, and back light on the keyboard, or just get tinted windows.

Hands free, or hands on. What is the difference.

Why don't we also make a law requiring two hands on the wheel at the same time. By allowing hands free this doesn't address the fact people are not paying attention.

tdrive2 wrote:Why don't we also make a law requiring two hands on the wheel at the same time. By allowing hands free this doesn't address the fact people are not paying attention.

Yer are ignoring all those poor blokes with standard transmission. Hard to drive in 1-st gear all the time.

Sure we could make legislation for that now to racer.

We could call it the Two hands on wheel Legislation.

And make it illegal to use your hands for anything else but controlling or operating a motor vehicle.

Then we could have a long legislation with all the exceptions listed.

Like tip tronic, or manual transmissions

Paddle Shift

Using controls for cleaning windows

Signaling

Humm even if i use hands free how do i dial the number?

How will the cop know i wasn't texting someone.

Next well have some sort of save the earth legislation to, which has laws to stop accelerating to fast to reduce gas consumption and green house gases.

Sorry this brings up an important question. I think it was squishy said the laws would be exempt for an emergency.

Driving and need to call hospital or 911. So how is the officer going to know you were dialing for an emergency.

Is he going to ask for your phone to prove it. And i am sure that leads to another whole legal debate over rights, and whether or not the officer would actual have permission at the road side to look through your phones history to actually see if was 911 you dialed.

Seems kind of stupid for the province to bring this in now.

I mean for how many years has this been going on now. Most young people have cell phones.

The time for a law like this was years ago when many didnt have these phones or "devices" and make it unacceptable.

How do you tell people ya the last 8 years you have been using a phone while driving is fine, but now its going to be illegal? I am sure for many this is a habbit now.

receiving or transmitting telephone communications, electronic data, mail or text messages

.

This should have, "That need to be interpreted by a human", added to it.

racer wrote:Yer are ignoring all those poor blokes with standard transmission. Hard to drive in 1-st gear all the time.

I would be one of those shifting blokes.

It should be no calls while driving, period. Too many studies indicate that it is the conversation, not the holding of the phone, that is the distraction.

tdrive2 wrote:what is stopping you from saying you were about to dial *OPP to report a dangerous driver or something you saw on the highway?

It would be HILARIOUS if someone got a ticket for using their phone to report a dangerous driver! LOL

We could automate the dangerous reporting:

Looks like hwybear at a road side stop for someone who didnt move over when he had his lights on cause they were talking on a cell phone.

You know with this law, i dont know how common it will be enforced.

Can you give multiple charges?

Such as careless driving, and then add this aswell.

Let's say that did happen, some guy is checking his email on the blackberry and crashes into the back of a cop car not paying attention.

How would the fines add up would he lose points and receive both fines added together, one for careless and the other for using a phone while driving?

tdrive2 wrote:Oh wait but what if i decide to use a GPS program on my blackberry.

It should have been no phone conversations or text-messaging while the vehicle is in motion except making a call to emergency services, I agree. However, one way or another, the car phonies had to be hammered to get them to focus on the road while driving. Will all of them hang up and drive? No, but some of them will, and then they might actually keep up with the flow of traffic, go when the light is green or stop when it is red, watch things like their blind spot and rearview mirrors before changing lanes, or when a vehicle stops in front of them, they might stop also. I was rear-ended by a phone whale on the Don Valley Parkway, now granted the damage wasn't enough to call the police, but still, I had been stopped for three seconds before I was hit.

They could've used existing legislation to go after them, but should we really hit someone with careless driving (6 points, possible licence suspension, and insurance company terminates coverage) for talking on the cellphone? Probably not. A fine should be enough.

Reflections wrote:Side note: My father-inlaw was rear ended the other day by a 21yr old nursing student. It was her second accident, she's got her G2. Her parents showed up at the scene and both said, your not driving my car....... Maybe they will have to learn the hard way......

While the number of irresponsible parents is growing, the majority of parents will do the right thing. If little Timmy or Tammy gets ticketed for driving with the cellphone, the majority of parents (granted not all of them, but most of them) would either take the phone or the car. I can't see a lot of parents continuing to allow their kids to endanger themselves or others, even with some rather blatant examples of the opposite in the past year.

I do not understand any parent that gives any child/teen a cellphone. I grew up without it with no problems, hell we still had rotary phones. It was also hard to find an overweight child/teen then either....why....we had to bike, walk to the others home to talk to them, plus we played sports etc...instead of texting and gaming!

anyway....everyone seems to have missed the one part of the legislation...

Use of non-wireless cellphone

Same

(5) Subsection (1) does not apply in respect of the use of a device to contact ambulance, police or fire department emergency services

I got my first cell phone in grade 9...and ten years later I'm still using it

Does it look like this:

Somehow, I think even Orillia is further ahead then that!

Not THAT old.

Looks like this:

These must be the phones they install in the cruisers.

Handsfree?