Advocate pushes for cross-border efforts to tackle distracted driving
Posted October 5, 2016 6:43 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It’s a tough question both police and politicians have struggled to answer for years: how do you actually get people to put down the phone while behind the wheel?
A local advocate is speaking up and pushing for coordinated action to tackle distracted driving and not just across the country but across international borders as well.
“There is no one solution to distracted driving,” says Karen Bowman with Vancouver Island-based Drop It And Drive. The group has partnered with the Traffic Injury Research Foundation calling for a much broader approach to preventing distracted driving.
She says legislation, enforcement and education must all be brought together, which is already the focus of a Canadian coalition. “Learning from what others are doing and also learning from where they are having challenges and working together on a national scale. And in this case on a global scale to address this issue.”
Bowman adds they are taking the Canadian approach to international conferences and seeing what other countries are doing all with the aim of coming up with an anti-distracted driving approach that will actually make an impact.
Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of deadly crashes on BC roads. And after years of having some of the lowest fines in the country, the provincial government doubled the penalties from $167 to $368. The number of points associated also increased from three to four. On a first infraction, the government says a driver will pay $175 in an ICBC driver penalty point premium, bringing their total to $543.
