According to police, a young man was fatally injured in a vehicle rollover caused by distracted driving in Springbank, July 18.
Sadly, this was not the first such fatality and it will not be the last. Chances are that right now, within 50 kilometres of where you sit, somebody is juggling an iPod, cigarette, coffee cup, cell phone and the steering wheel.
The provincial government’s new distracted driving law, unveiled last spring, will be mildly useful to address the threat distracted driving poses. However, there is no direct correlation between instituting laws and reducing crime, especially laws that ban a behaviour which is already illegal. If the provincial government really wanted to help reduce distracted driving on our highways, it would pay to hire more police officers.
Over the next year in the Airdrie area, officers are being asked to clock overtime as part of a traffic safety crackdown. Modelled after similar programs recently used in Chestermere and Grande Prairie, police hope to cover their costs with the ticket revenue they generate as well as drive home a point with the motoring public: dangerous and impaired driving will not be tolerated.
Efforts such as these will do much more to reduce the threat on our roads than the creation of 100 redundant laws.
They also underline how short staffed local police detachments are. If we had the proper number of officers on duty in one of the fastest growing regions in Canada, the current officers would not be asked to work overtime.
Passing laws may be cheaper and provide a symbolic gesture, but what we really need is police on the beat to put a stop to irresponsible, distracted driving.
