The leading cause of traffic fatalities in the province, according to the Insurance Corp. of B.C., is speeding. The second-leading cause is distracted driving.
Yet the B.C. Liberal government has boosted speed limits while threatening to bring down its wrath on slower drivers who occupy the left lane. And now it鈥檚 dilly-dallying about increasing the severity of penalties for distracted driving. The Liberals are sending mixed messages about road safety.
Justice Minister Suzanne Anton is pondering heavier fines for people who talk on their phones or text while driving and wants to hear British Columbians鈥� opinions by way of a month-long online consultation process.
It鈥檚 always good to get public opinion, but this is about what is safe, not what is popular. Just do it. Double the fines, add a provision for suspension of driving privileges in certain cases and get to the root of the problem by impounding cellphones.
Last year, the government raised speed limits on certain rural highways. The RCMP, the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police and the trucking industry opposed the increased speeds, but Transportation Minister Todd Stone said the public favoured the higher limits and besides, most people already drive faster than the posted speed.
Let鈥檚 hope the government doesn鈥檛 apply that same logic to distracted driving. As any commuter knows, it鈥檚 a widespread problem and 鈥渆verybody鈥檚 doing it鈥� doesn鈥檛 make it right. Perhaps some of the outrage directed at 鈥渓eft-lane hogs鈥� should be channelled toward distracted drivers.
Stone has been particularly vehement about those who dawdle along in the left lane while the traffic stacks up behind them. That was already against the law, but the law has been toughened to make it easier for police to ticket these offenders.
Stone has said these dawdlers cause road rage and are a danger to other drivers. While being stuck behind a slow driver is annoying, and such drivers should move over, road rage is an internal problem, not something to blame on others. Cracking down on left-lane slowpokes seems to be a massive hammer for a minor offence.
And a confusing hammer. Does this mean speeders 鈥� whom Stone appears to have given a free pass 鈥� get to make the rules for everyone else? With the new legislation, a motorist driving at the speed limit is compelled to give way to someone who is speeding and, in some cases, further breaking the law by following too closely. What if the right lane is already crowded, making a lane change a dangerous move?
The law mandating keeping to the right except to pass is reasonable, if reasonably enforced. Raising some speed limits is not necessarily outrageous 鈥� cars and roads are better engineered these days.
But those were not particularly pressing or serious issues. Distracted driving is serious. The government should relax its obsession with lesser things and apply the same toughness to distracted driving that it did to impaired driving. That toughness resulted in real and positive changes.
Besides hefty and escalating fines, the government should add confiscation to the mix. If a phone is impounded for a fortnight or a month (while safely sealed to protect private data), phone-addicted drivers are more likely to shed their dangerous habits.
It wouldn鈥檛 be popular, but it would be the right thing to do.
