EDMONTON – Alberta police are reminding drivers to hang up their phones and hang onto the steering wheel.
Politicians and police gathered for a press conference in Edmonton on Monday to stress how the new penalties can affect drivers.
According to the province, research indicates that distracted driving contributes to 20 to 30 per cent of all collisions and that distracted drivers are three times more likely to be involved in a collision than attentive drivers.
In an effort to get Alberta motorists to take the law more seriously, new penalties for distracted driving came into affect on Jan. 1.
Drivers charged with distracted driving will now receive a $287 fine as well as three demerits.
READ MORE: ‘You would hope’: Edmonton police want new distracted driving penalties taken seriously
Supt. Ian Lawson, who is with the RCMP’s K Division Traffic Services, said fines were not enough to deter drivers.
“When it comes into having demerit points, they know that now their driving licence privileges could be revoked and that may, hopefully, have a greater impact to reduce the amount of distracted driving,” Lawson said. “Taking your eyes off the road for two or more seconds doubles your chances of being involved in a collision. Multi-tasking skills may be a good thing to have in many situations, but behind the wheel of a car isn’t one of them.”
Alberta first introduced distracted driving legislation in Sept. 2011.
Some fact about distracted driving in Alberta:
- Between Sept. 1, 2011 and Mar. 31, 2015, there have been 87,633 distracted driving convictions across Alberta.
- 97 per cent of those convictions were for using a hand-held electronic device while driving.
- During 2014-15, male drivers accounted for two-thirds of all convictions.
- Young male drivers, between the ages of 22 and 34, have the highest conviction rates.
- In the Driver Attitude Survey conducted in Aug. 2014, 81 per cent of Alberta drivers said they believed distracted driving is the leading cause of collisions. Despite this, 53 per cent of Alberta drivers admitted to texting while driving in the previous three months.
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