Interesting story from The Star, a Canadian online news paper, which tells of a judge’s ruling that merely holding a phone whilst driving should not get you a ticket under their new distracted driving law.
A female 4×4 driver had allegedly bent down whilst stopped at lights to pick up her mobile, which had fallen on to the floor. A police officer close by saw her eyes flick up and down several times while the lights were on red, and when he walked over she had an opened clam-shell phone in her hand.
This is what they call a smoking gun scenario everywhere else except in Canada.
The ruling has started the usual legal mumbo-jumbo that seems to prevail in North America.
Andrew Dekany, the lawyer who conducted Kazemi’s appeal without charge, called it a sensible decision. “When a law is too, too rigid, almost absurd, people don’t follow it.”
The wording of Canada’s new law is:
…you cannot drive “while holding or using a hand-held wireless communication device.”
When I’m out with pupils I see people’s eyes flicking up and down at lights all the time. I know for an absolute fact that they are using their mobile phones. You hold one because you intend to use it – or, in a small number of cases, because you’re a prat who just can’t put it down.
But in Canada it’s different, apparently.
In the case of this woman, having the mobile on the seat, sending it flying to the floor when stopping, and having it open in her hand speaks volumes about what her normal behaviour when driving must be like. And the upshot is that the Canadian Police have now got virtually no chance of enforcing the law, so they won’t try unless it is on camera.
Well done, Judge Nakatsuru.