Coast drivers are changing their driving behaviour to comply with new legislation prohibiting driving while using hand-held electronic devices, according to the RCMP.
"What you're seeing a lot more now is that people are pulling over on the side of the road," said Const. Adriaan de Jong in the RCMP's Sunshine Coast traffic services section. "It used to be when somebody was over on the side of the road, they'd probably be in trouble. Lately what you see is that they're talking on the phone."
Changes to the Motor Vehicle Act, which took effect Jan. 1 and have carried a $167 fine plus an additional three-point penalty for texting or emailing since Feb. 1, prohibit calling or texting on hand-held cell phones, and using portable handheld electronic devices such as iPods and MP3 players. The changes to the legislation allow only hands-free cell phones and devices that require only one touch to activate them.
In January, de Jong said, RCMP wrote 27 warnings; by February, with the fines coming into effect, that number dropped to six tickets.
De Jong said that, despite these low numbers, a number of Coast residents still aren't complying with the legislation, and the RCMP is running various operations to target offenders.
"Sometimes we set up little operations where we have a spotter and the spotter would be looking for seatbelts and other infractions as well as the cell phones," he said. "And sometimes one of us will sit on a street and watch the traffic go by and target that kind of stuff."
But apprehending offenders, he said, isn't always a simple task.
"It's something that's hard to see, especially on a day with the clouds and the reflection on the window and the rain, " he said. "So it's really hard to tell sometimes."
De Jong said, at only two months in, that it's too early to quantify what impact the new legislation may have on Sunshine Coast accident rates.
