The Canadian province of British Columbia is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, with spectacular snow-capped mountains and coastal scenery. It is not the kind of place where you want to take your hand off the wheel to answer a call or send a text message or video clip.

For the province’s beauty comes with a price: curvy, steep roads to traverse in often treacherous conditions: rain, ice, snow, fog, plus avalanches and landslides. A two-car collision or flipped-over truck can block a road, causing multi-hour delays. Many major highways -- including all of the ones from Vancouver eastward to the Interior -- have gates for when these events are sufficiently severe to making driving unsafe or impossible.

These issues are accentuated by a huge population growth, alas resulting in traffic congestion and accidents. Most of the province’s 4.4 million residents live in the expanding urban areas around Vancouver and Victoria, its chief metro areas, with sizable increases in smaller Interior cities like Kelowna and Penticton. An aging populace with declining driving skills, increased cycling and walking, in addition to tourist travel by car, bus, and foot also adds to the “watch-fors.” So do chokepoints -- and impatient drivers -- such as at border crossings, bridges, ferry terminals, and tunnels.

 

British Columbia has not surprisingly joined the lengthening caravan of jurisdictions that are cracking down on distracted driving via the (mis) use of electronic devices while in vehicles. The provincial government has introduced changes to its motor vehicle law that if passed by the legislature, which is certain, will ban operating or holding hand-held cell phones or other electronic devices and sending or reading e-mails and/or texting.

The regulations, which are expected to come into effect Jan. 2010 -- in time for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics being held in Vancouver and Whistler in February and March -- will also prohibit operating or holding hand-held music or portable gaming devices. It will not allow manual programming or adjusting GPS systems, whether built into vehicles or not, while driving; settings must be programmed before driving.

British Columbia will permit hands-free cell phones that are built in or securely fixed to vehicles, and used by pressing a single button -- once only -- to activate a hands-free device for incoming or outgoing calls. It will also allow callers to dial 9-1-1 to report emergencies, permit pre-programmed and voice-activated GPS devices, and two-way radios for industry, and use any device if the vehicles are legally parked and not impeding traffic.

Emergency service personnel that need to make calls in the performance of their duties are exempt from the regulations. At the same time new drivers under the province’s graduated licensing program (GLP) are prohibited from using hands-free communications devices while driving.

A new fine in the amount of $167 will begin to be levied on Feb. 1, 2010. If drivers are caught texting or e-mailing they will receive an additional three penalty points. Further, drivers in the GLP will receive the $167 fine and three penalty points for any violation of this legislation.

Education is key to compliance, though. The province will launch an awareness campaign to educate drivers on the new law and the importance of paying attention to the road, pedestrians and other cars around them.

According to independent research and studies, cell phone use while driving is the number-one cause of distracted driving says the province. On average, about 117 people die each year in British Columbia and 1,400 are sent to hospital because someone was not paying attention behind the wheel.

These changes bring British Columbia in line with the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. Neighboring Alberta recently announced that it intends to introduce similar distracted driving legislation this fall. Next door Washington State, which shares the same environment -- and there is an enormous amount of travel between the province and the state--has a similar set of laws on its books.

“We’re taking action today because British Columbians have made it clear they support stronger restrictions on cell phones and other devices that take a driver's hands off the wheel and their eyes from the road,” said Solicitor General Kash Heed. “Simply put, you cannot talk, type or dial on any hand-held device while driving.”

The new legislation has been welcomed by medical and law enforcement authorities who literally have to pick up the pieces.

“As physicians, we often see the consequences of those injured in a car crash because a distracted driver was using a cellphone,” says Dr. Brian Brodie, president of the BC Medical Association. “This is preventative legislation that focuses on being responsible with new technology in a way that doesn't put people's lives at risk.”

“Police have been looking forward to these changes because it gives us another enforcement tool to create safer roads in this province,” Clayton Pecknold, vice-president of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police, said.