The BC government has received an outpouring of emotional stories and calls for increased penalties for distracted driving during a month-long public consultation.
More than 10,000 submissions included the stories of a couple who suffered severe injuries and their unborn child when a distracted driver veered into their path, and a veteran trucker with a bird’s eye view of people texting while driving.
“It was the heartfelt stories that really surprised me, that people wrote in to say ‘this has caused me a tragedy'” says Minister of Justice Suzanne Anton, “When you hear those, and you think of the 88 deaths on our roads last year from distracted driving, every one of those is a tragedy.”
It’s a tragedy British Columbians feel strongly about.
Through the month-long consultation, 962 emails and 1,932 online comments were submitted, while the dedicated website had 24,000 hits, and #distractedBC hashtag had over 1,000 tweets.
The website’s ‘Add Your Voice’ survey page garnered more than 69,000 responses from 9,400 contributors.
So, what now?
“Roadsafe BC will be taking all this information and analyzing it. We’ll be doing comparisons with other jurisdictions and they will be bringing some options back to me a little later this year, with the intent of implementation early next year.,” explains Anton.
96% of of 7,493 people surveyed said drivers with multiple tickets for distracted driving should face greater penalties, while the vast majority of people called for an increase in fines for first-time offenders.
British Columbia’s current penalties- $167 and three penalty points- are the second-lowest in the country.
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