Police riding public transit to catch texting drivers
Texting while driving has become a massive threat to people's safety on the roads. It is a tangible and punishable offence, yet it is also extremely difficult to enforce. The act of texting is often so quick and unobservable that those who are guilty of it rarely get caught. Canadian police have found a way around that.
CBC is reporting that an increasing number of Canadian police forces have taken to riding public transit in order to catch texting drivers. This strategy removes the biggest obstacle for cops in sniffing out drivers who are texting or engaging in other forms of distraction: the fact that people keep their phones below the cut-off part of the driver's window. Being on a bus affords cops the luxury of an unobstructed vantage point. They can observe texting on the roads with far more certainty. Although they can't pull over a driver from the bus, they can communicate to other nearby police in the force that the driver needs to be ticketed.
Some of the municipalities that have been confirmed to be using this technique are the York Region, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, and Quebec City. The initial fine for distracted driving in Ontario is $490. Fine amounts vary by province, but several of them can be upwards of $1,000 for repeat offenders.
The statistics on distracted driving are quite sobering. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, you are 23 times more likely to be involved in a collision if you text while driving, compared to just four times more likely if you talk on a cell phone while driving. CBC notes that the number of distracted driving deaths in Ontario has doubled since 2000, with one person in the province being injured in a distracted driving collision every 30 minutes on average.
Having police riding on public transit isn't a fix-all solution to texting while driving. Many regions don't have public transit, and even in those that do, total surveillance is unattainable. But initiatives like this could go along way towards modifying people's behaviour and making them more conscientious about their actions on the roads.