Ontario is boosting the fine for motorists who are caught driving while distracted by a cellphone, MP3 player or other electronic devices.
Including surcharges, the current fine for distracted driving is $155 but it will jump to $280 on March 18 after Ontario chief justice Annemarie Bonkalo authorized the new amount last week.
Drivers who receive a summons or who contest their ticket by going to court may face a costlier fine if they are found guilty.
This is the first time the fine amount has increased since the ban on handheld devices came into effect in October 2009.
There are no demerits points and police do not confiscate handheld devices.
In an interview with CP24 traffic and safety specialist Cam Woolley, provincial Transportation Minister Glen Murray wouldn't say if the Liberal government plans to include demerit points as a penalty.
Murray said the government is looking at existing seatbelt and drinking and driving laws to craft something similar for distracted driving in an effort to make the roads safer and to save lives.
“This is as serious as drinking and driving. It literally is as foolish a thing and as dangerous a thing to do as getting drunk and getting behind the wheel of a car,” Murray said.
Murray said distracted driving is a growing problem and more deaths are occurring every year, despite the existing penalties and public education efforts.
Last fall, Murray told CTV News he supports legislation that would add demerit points as a penalty because the fine alone isn’t discouraging distracted driving.
His colleague, Liberal MPP Bas Balkissoon, has been pushing for demerit points.
Last November, Balkissoon proposed a private member’s bill that would add three demerit points as a penalty and increase the fine to $500 to $700.
Police encounter 'lack of compliance'
Police Const. Clint Stibbe, a traffic services officer, became a victim when his car was struck by a vehicle driven by a distracted motorist, and he said police are seeing a "lack of compliance" on Toronto streets.
Stibbe likened the situation to when mandatory seatbelt laws were introduced decades ago. Many people didn’t comply with the law until demerit points were added as a penalty, and the same thing could happen with distracted driving, he said.
Over the last two years, there have been three fatal crashes in Toronto that police have been able to directly attribute to cellphone use, Stibbe told CP24.
A driver using a cellphone is four times more likely to be in a crash than a driver focused on the road, the province says.
The law makes it illegal for people to hold a cellphone or other devices while driving, but drivers are allowed to use a handheld device to call 911 in an emergency or if they are lawfully parked.
Hands-free devices such as a cellphone with a Bluetooth device are permitted.
Drivers are also banned from manually programming GPS devices or watching display screens unrelated to the driving task, including laptops or DVD players.
There are some exemptions to the law.
Police officers, paramedics, firefighters and enforcement officers are allowed to use handheld devices such as a cellphone and view display screens such as a laptop while performing their duties.
Handheld two-way radios can be used for commercial purposes (by taxi drivers and couriers, for example) and public service workers (transit and highway maintenance workers, for example) under an exemption that has been extended to Jan. 1, 2018.
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