DISTRACTED DRIVING

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Distracted Driving

Driving is a task that requires your full attention every time you get behind the wheel. As a driver, you must always remember to reduce driver distractions and focus on the driving task. Your first responsibility is road safety!
There are a number of potential driver distractions and these may include:

• Technology devices such as cell phones, laptops and hand-held organizers,
• Reading maps or other material,
• Grooming activities,
• Eating or drinking,
• Note taking,
• Conversing with passengers,
• Tending to children or pets, and
• Adjusting in-vehicle controls (radio, climate control and CD player.)

The following are some tips to help reduce driver distraction:

1. Put reading material in trunk if tempted to read.
2. Attend to personal grooming and plan route before leaving.
3. Identify and preset your vehicle's climate control, radio and CD player.
4. Make it a habit to use your cell phone only when parked, have a passenger take the call or let the caller go to voice mail.
5. Do not engage in emotional or complex conversation.
6. When hungry or thirsty, take a break.
7. Plan for safe locations to stop (for example, rest stops or commuter lots) to make and receive calls.
8. Before you start driving turn off your cellular phone.
9. Allow calls to go to voice mail or allow a passenger to make and receive calls.
10. Consider recording an outgoing voice message that lets callers know you are on the road.

In Emergencies:

Having a cellular phone in your vehicle can be an important safety aid for drivers and passengers — whether for personal safety or for reporting a crime or a collision. If you must use your cell phone in an emergency — a situation that could result in a danger to your safety or the safety of others if it is not corrected without delay — consider the following tips:

1. Pull over safely if conditions allow.
2. Keep emergency calls as brief as possible.
3. Alert the caller that you are on the road.
4. End conversations immediately if driving conditions or situations become hazardous (for example, inclement weather, roadway construction, high-speed or high-volume traffic).

Other considerations

1. Be alert to situations on the road where a cell phone's radio frequency and electronics may be potentially harmful such as: construction zones where blasting is occurring, or at gas stations/fueling areas.
2. Remember, focus on the task of driving, with your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Reduce the distractions that may cause you to overreact or respond too slowly to a situation.

Motorists And Cellular Phones

NEW - Ontario’s Bill 118, The Countering Distracted Driving and Promoting Green Transportation Act, 2009.

Ontario’s new law prohibiting the use of hand-held cell phones and other hand-held communications and entertainment devices while driving came into effect in fall 2009.

The law applies to drivers who text, type, email, dial or chat while using any hand-held device. Those convicted will face fines of $155 . Hands-free use will still be permitted.

Smart Drivers Just Drive!

When driving a vehicle, road safety is your first responsibility! It is important to focus on driving and to reduce driver distractions.

Driver distraction is a major cause of collisions

Using either a hand-held or hands-free cell phone while driving makes it four times more likely that you will be involved in a collision. In fact, using a cell phone affects what a driver sees, reduces reaction time and changes the way drivers react — especially in heavy traffic. Driving for work and using a phone? Motor vehicle collisions are the greatest single cause of traumatic workplace deaths in Ontario.

Drivers should avoid using their cell phone while driving except in an emergency. Police can charge drivers with careless driving if they do not pay full attention to the driving task. A driver convicted of careless driving will receive six demerit points, fines of up to $1,000 and/or a jail term of six months. In some cases, the driver's license may be suspended for up to two years. This is one of Ontario's toughest rules of the road.

Remember, smart drivers just drive! In three seconds driving sixty kilometers per hour you travel fifty meters — that's the distance across half a football field. A momentary distraction can result in death or serious injury.