A Vancouver driver was using not one, not two, but four electronic devices while driving.
Vancouver Police Department (VPD) Traffic Unit pulled a distracted driver off the road Tuesday morning (Aug. 30) and found a number of electronic devices on the front passenger seat, including several phones and a laptop.
This was after the driver had allegedly steered around a "road closed" sign into oncoming traffic and passed a police vehicle with emergency lights on, said the VPD Traffic Unit in a tweet.
The incident happened on Cambie at Dunsmuir street.
According to a VPD public affairs officer, after the driver passed the "road closed" traffic sign, he then "continued in the wrong lane, passing a police vehicle with emergency lights activated. There was a large construction hole in front of the police vehicle," they told Vancouver Is Awesome.
"The driver was issued a ticket for using an electronic device while driving ($368) and disobeying a traffic control device ($121)," the officer added.
The same day, ICBC shared a new Ipsos survey revealing that more drivers across the province are using their phones while driving compared to 2019.
The survey shows that 43 per cent of drivers surveyed admit to "using their phone at least once out of every 10 trips" as opposed to 33 per cent in 2019.
"Distracted driving is a serious concern in B.C., accounting for more than one in four fatal crashes and claiming the lives of 76 British Columbians each year," reads the news release.
Police data based on a five-year average from 2016 to 2020 also revealed, according to the news release, that, on average, 25 people are killed in distracted driving-related crashes in the Lower Mainland every year.
