Supt. Mike Coyle said close to 2,800 of the tickets issued across B.C. were for distracted driving, 873 were not wearing a seatbelt and 87 were for not having children properly secured.
A B.C. Highway Patrol crackdown on distracted driving and non-use of seatbelts in March led to over 3,000 tickets being issued, including 337 on Vancouver Island.
Supt. Mike Coyle said close to 2,800 of the tickets issued across B.C. were for distracted driving, 873 were not wearing a seatbelt and 87 were for not having children properly secured.
On the Island, 276 distracted drivers were ticketed and 61 people were found not wearing seatbelts.
Fines for not wearing a seatbelt or not being properly restrained start from $109 for a child to $167 for an adult, while a ticket for using an electronic device while driving brings fines upward of $368.
“Many of these distracted-driving tickets were written for people using the highway system, not merely those stopped at intersections,” Coyle said.
He said the numbers show that drivers need to do better, and that everyone in the province “is paying the consequences of collisions that come from high-risk driving behaviours.”
In one case, a driver spotted using her cellphone turned out to be impaired by alcohol and received a driving suspension, the highway patrol said.
source & photo: Times Colonist
