Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel

Borrowing the line 'Keep your eyes on the road,your hands upon the wheel,' from the Doors 'Roadhouse Blues,' local authorities are driving home the message that talking and/or texting while driving is not only against they law but can have a tragic ending.

According to Transport Canada driver distraction contributes over 20 percent of all collisions in Canada. Drivers using a hand-held or hands-free cell phone are four times more likely to be involved in a collision than drivers who are focused on the road. And drivers who text while behind the wheel are 23 times more likely to crash.

On Friday Connecting Community Partners in Injury Prevention released the results of an anecdotal survey conducted by local policing students. They found that out of 21,965 vehicles observed there were 751 infractions were commited by area motorists. Of the vehicles observed 181 drivers were using hand held cell phone device, 42 were openly texting and there were 528 other forms of distraction (eating, drinking, personal grooming, dogs on lap or amorous activity) including one women who was folding laundry.

North Bay Police Chief Paul Cook says the results are very disturbing.

“I can tell you this happens locally, we have many motor vehicle collisions in the city and all to often it is because the drivers aren't paying attention.”

“The legislation is there, it is there for a reason and it's saving lives so the message we're trying to get out to the motoring public is if you are driving get hands free, don't be eating don't be doing things that are going to distract you from focusing on your attention (to the road).”

OPP Inspector Mark Andrews so troubled by the tragedies he is seeing on the highways that he was compelled to issue a statement earlier this week. Friday he said if a driver is distracted or decides not to wear a seatbelt they are putting lives at risk.

“In the North East Region we have had at least 12 motor vehicle collisions that have resulted in fatalities where the drivers have crossed the centre line for some reason … in most of those accidents the driver has been killed so we can't tell you whether they were distracted by a cell phone, a blackberry, eating or what happened,” he states.

“But this does cause people to die and causes all sorts of injuries.”

“On the 19th of May Secretary General Ban Ki-moom of the United Nations brought this to the United Nations floor in New York, it is a worldwide problem where 1.2 million people die across this planet a year because of distracted driving. This isn't just a local problem it is a global problem and we need it to be addressed and we need to stop it. It is so easy to stop it buy yourself a hands free device, stay alert, stay involved in your driving, concentrate on your journey not on your destination.”



Andrews added that the OPP will be out on the highways continuing to crackdown of distracted drivers.