Alberta distracted driver act

Your submissions are monitored by our web team and are used to help improve the experience on Alberta. If you require a response, please go to our Contact page. Table of contents. Follow these tips to minimize distractions: Put your phone away — Only use your cellphone when your vehicle is parked in a safe place. If your phone rings while driving, have a passenger take the call or let it go to voicemail. Stay calm — Avoid emotional conversations with passengers as this can lead to distraction and unsafe behaviours.

If you are using a hands-free cell to speak with someone, make sure they know you may need to hang up or interrupt the conversation suddenly to react to road conditions. Keep your hands on the wheel — Never take notes or read while driving. Park in a safe place before writing things down or referring to a map. Pull over as needed — If you need to attend to your kids or pets while driving, find a safe spot to park first.

Plan ahead — Program electronics like music players, phones and GPS units before starting to drive. Keep in mind that although these activities are not penalized under law, that you should always be careful when removing your eyes or attention from the road — even for a brief second. Here are some things you can do in your car without fear of a ticket or penalty:. Remember that distracted driving is not only caused by preoccupying your hands or taking your eyes off the road.

A heated conversation with someone on a hands-free device, for example, can be enough to distract your brain from driving. Not only are you putting yourself, your passengers, and other drivers in danger, but you are also putting your finances at risk. Tickets will increase your insurance rates because you are statistically more likely to be in another accident, especially when it comes to a distracted driving violation.

While our first piece of advice to you is to not drive while distracted. Our team at Capital Insurance is here to answer all of your insurance questions — g et in touch with us today!

What is Distracted Driving? What are the Legal Penalties for Distracted Driving? It can be difficult to predict when a literal reading will be preferred to a contextual or purposive reading, or vice versa.

Likewise, there are other principles of interpretation that seem to arise in some cases but not others. Here, for example, I was surprised not to see reference to the canon of interpretation that says legislation should be construed strictly in favour of an accused. It seems R v Ahmed was exactly the sort of case for which that ancient maxim was designed for. In R v Ahmed , Justice Henderson fails to address the difficulty in section Surely this was not simply an oversight by the Legislature in subsection 3 to only refer to clause a in subsection 1 and not clause b.

The complexity of sections It seems that what really transpired here was that the charge against the accused was incorrectly laid under section It was an oversight on the part of someone, but I would respectfully say it is not helpful to stretch the principles of statutory interpretation beyond what they can bear in order to correct a mistake made in charging the accused.

There is no dispute that the overall purpose in these sections includes preventing drivers from using their mobile devices while driving as noted by Justice Henderson at paras 43 to 50 , but that purposive reading does little to support a finding that mobile phones are captured in both clauses a and b in light of how the section is drafted.

Skip to content. Display screen visible to driver prohibited Global positioning system About Shaun Fluker B. Alberta , LL. Victoria , LL. Associate Professor. Please click here for more information. This entry was posted in Criminal , Statutory Interpretation. Bookmark the permalink.