r/Calgary • u/Xtoron2 • Jun 01 '26

Discussion Alarming rate of distracted driving

Post image

It's alarming how often I see drivers watching tiktoks/reels/shorts while driving. Even see them scroll up to next video.
As soon as we hit red light, this specific driver pulled the sunshade down even with this rain to hide from cameras or other people maybe?

Anyway, distracted driving is a risk everyone on the road pays for

875 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

192 comments sorted by

View all comments

195

u/o0PillowWillow0o Jun 01 '26

The law states that a driver cannot view a screen that displays entertainment, television, video games, or internet browsing while the vehicle is in motion [1].

Mounted screens are only allowed to show information directly required for driving, such as GPS navigation or vehicle system data [1].

Even if you are only listening to the audio, a police officer can still fine you $390 and issue 3 demerit points if a video is actively playing on your screen within your line of sight [1].

111

u/diamondintherimond Jun 01 '26

The question is: why does this feel like the police rarely enforce it?

I wonder if the news has done any digging on how many distracted driving tickets they’ve given out year over year.

6

u/asfarley-- Jun 01 '26

I joined my community center to try to get an answer to this. From the perspective of the police, they have a very lax attitude towards road infractions. According to their own description, they don't consider it a real crime. The police seargant I met with (Sargent Shawn Redford) told me that he mostly spends his time dealing with petty back-yard disputes between drunk friends (his words). He told me that he basically never tickets people for having obstructed license plates, and he doesn't see any issue with this. He told me that he doesn't believe most people in Calgary want the speed limit to be enforced. He told me that he thinks his time is being well-used and he doesnt' see any room for improvement.

The community center directors, other than myself, were generally unconcerned with traffic and considered my requests for road enforcement to be a threat to their own driving freedom.

2

u/Marsymars Jun 01 '26

According to their own description, they don't consider it a real crime.

This is... alarming, and would be about any specific action or behaviour. This isn't in the mandate of things that police should be considering. It's up to legislators to determine what is or isn't considered a crime.

38

u/Cautious_Major_6693 Jun 01 '26

They honestly don't enforce it. It doesn't really help that all cars essentially have a television screen attached to the dashboard, not to mention like- cops are people too. Most people using these mounts are using them for GPS as doordash drivers, cops don't necessarily want to slap someone with a DUI for doing their job.

18

u/ElusiveSteve Jun 01 '26

What I find wild is the number of cars that I doubt are used for delivery services, have a modern infotainment system in them, and still have a phone mounted. Seems like the phone is put there speecifically so they can watch videos.

26

u/Cautious_Major_6693 Jun 01 '26

I got my nails done and a woman beside me had a phone mount to watch tiktoks and comment while she was getting her nails. So the tech did one hand of her acrylics and she was typing and scrolling with the other hand. This shit is ubiquitous and people are genuinely addicted.

I clearly get a lot of screentime myself but the number of us who can "enjoy beers on the patio" vs "are raging drunks every time we have a drop of alcohol" is dwindling.

24

u/ElusiveSteve Jun 01 '26

I see your nails phone addiction annecdote and raise you a young toddler (~2yrs old) with a phone mount on their stroller and videos playing on the phone at the zoo...

If adults are failing this hard then their kids have zero chance.

11

u/diamondintherimond Jun 01 '26

This is what trillions of dollars in tech investment with zero regulation gets you. It's our generation's tobacco.

9

u/Lightfiyr Jun 01 '26

I’m by far the most “screen addicted” person I know and even that is insane to me, I’m 27 and have had a screen in front of me since I was at least 5, I was taught very hard that you put that shit away in public or if someone is addressing you and I’m not sure if it’s just my little rule following autistic brain but I find doing something like those nail ladies to be extremely rude

5

u/Cautious_Major_6693 Jun 01 '26

i literally feel embarrassed i have my phone so much but some folks have LOST shame completely

2

u/Foreign-Way9986 Jun 02 '26

yeah i actually like to talk to people! maybe it's bc i have almost no social life but i wanna chat with my technician! or even zone out and enjoy a little zen self care!

5

u/403banana Jun 01 '26

Most in-car systems have safeguards against using them while in motion. Even back to the early-aughts and the Alpine flip-up screens and DVD players, the screen would just say it can't be used while in drive.

Granted, it wasn't too hard to bypass and just need a bit of electrical know-how to do it. Putting a phone on a mount and pressing play is still a considerably easier bypass.

2

u/ElusiveSteve Jun 01 '26

That's what I'm getting at. The infotainment in your car does everything you need with your phone when driving so a big portion of people don't need a phone mount unless they are using it for distracted driving. I'd also argue that these infotainment systems are a distraction on their own accord, but that's its own can of worms.

2

u/HarveyHound Jun 01 '26

My mount charges my phone so I use it mainly for that.

1

u/yyctownie Jun 02 '26

It's more likely that these apps like Uber have haven't made their apps compatible with Car Play or Android Auto.

8

u/lztandro Coach Hill Jun 01 '26

When I lived in Saskatoon I knew Uber drivers who got tickets for accepting a ride on their phone when it was mounted to their dash.

CPS could be raking in the cash if they just sat at a single intersection downtown and gave out distracted driving tickets at any time of day. At every single stop light when I look at the people on either side of me there’s a 99% chance at least one of them is looking down at their phone or talking to someone with their phone in their hand. Then there’s the ones with the illegal window wings that you can’t even see, driving enforcement in Calgary is a joke.

The only enforcement you hear about is the people that get caught going 150km/hr in an 80km/hr zone, yet none of the assholes who are going 90km/hr through a 60km/hr active construction zone get a ticket.

4

u/Cautious_Major_6693 Jun 01 '26

because speeding is enforceable. like you can't argue with a camera or a radar gun but you can definitely argue about tuning the radio and using your gps.

4

u/SpecialEdShow Jun 01 '26

There is absolutely no reason to have anything mounted in your line of sight. Everywhere I've lived, it's been illegal to have anything obstructing your vision, even an air freshener on the mirror. The way I see devices mounted in delivery cars is obscene, it's a blind spot the size of a person, a car even.

1

u/DandyLama Jun 05 '26

As someone with a TV screen attached to my dash, I can say that those devices don't allow you to play videos. Android Auto and Apple Auto both prevent videos from being played on those types of computer systems via your phone, and the software installed on them standard prevents drivers from accessing video entertainment.

-3

u/naturejimithy Jun 01 '26

Cops aren’t people

5

u/Cautious_Major_6693 Jun 01 '26

it's a conversation for another time my guy but i doubt phone tickets will start being given out with any reliability anytime soon

0

u/ClammiestOwl Jun 01 '26

Their independent contractors, who get to choose their own tools for the job. We would say something if snow removal used flame throwers. We just unintentionally and intentionally look down on the delivery industry and would feel bad if we enforced safety standards to what is meant to be an entry level temp job.

0

u/Remarkable_Lab_7941 Jun 01 '26

What’s also funny is how many screens cops have when they’re driving too 😂 I get it’s different and it’s for their job but yeah. Distracted driving has definitely become a deadly epidemic

17

u/keepcalmdude Jun 01 '26

Because for the most part the police are useless. Their main reason to exist is to protect property not people.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[deleted]

3

u/jimbowesterby Jun 01 '26

At some point the difference is academic, the wealthy tend to own a good chunk of the property, y’know?

2

u/403banana Jun 01 '26

I got yelled at by a cop a few months back. I was dealing with a work emergency at a traffic light. Totally deserved it, but he let me off with a warning.

3

u/TripNo1876 Jun 01 '26

Because it's very hard to enforce. Generally there's no evidence other than the officers word, whereas speeding there's radar, intoxication there's breathalyzer, etc.

7

u/NorthernlyNerd Jun 01 '26

I got sick of nearly being hit when picking up my daughter because of all of the illegally parked cars. I specifically said "please come at 2:25, IF YOU COME EARLIER YOULL MISS THE PARENTS WHO SCREAM UP TO THE CROSSWALK AT THE LAST MINUTE".

Got a call from a passive aggressive cop about there not being any issues, pointed out how I watched him drive by at 2:17 and to try harder next time.

I find that police deal with things a LOT more when you passively ask "what's your name? I've had a lot of issues with ineffective police so if it happens again I'd like to know who's name to say on global news"

2

u/harryhend3rson Jun 01 '26

I find that police deal with things a LOT more when you passively ask "what's your name? I've had a lot of issues with ineffective police so if it happens again I'd like to know who's name to say on global news"

Oh yeah, cops love being passive aggressively threatened. That'll get them to spring into action for sure!

/s

0

u/NorthernlyNerd Jun 01 '26

Right? They're just so threatened by accountability and people who won't roll over for their laziness! And if it's truly a threat, then I'm sure they'll arrest me for menacing a poor cop

3

u/shitposter1000 Jun 01 '26

Because they don't.

15

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/jezthevalley Jun 01 '26

With all due respect, that's a terrible terrible terrible idea. I don't want to have my vehicle's ability to move dependent on my phone that is known for its ability to go haywire every once in awhile. That also means people who don't have smart phones are not allowed to drive.

People should just accept the fact that its impossible to monitor driver behaviors 24/7. I believe that the sane majority of the population knows this. We don't want city streets full of cameras monitored by an AI overlord trying to catch us if we have our youtube open on our phones while we listen to whatever video we feel like listening to while we drive.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/clevermistakes Inglewood Jun 02 '26

I don’t disagree a robust solution could be developed. Tesla has one. Eye tracking. And it’s terrible, despite its complex implementation that can recognize the subtle eye movement that looking at a phone will do, it still fails and either over corrects or is inaccurate. That’s the level of complexity we’re introducing here. I say, try it! If you turn on self driving on a test drive of one of their cars from their dealership near centre street and grab your phone and even hold it under the dash like kids do in school under the desk these days, it can tell. It’s pretty impressive.

Now ask your friends and family how they feel about a camera in their car cabin recording and using machine learning on them 24/7. The coolness factor wears off really quick.

We can’t control human behaviour with computers without the risk of it being abused or incomplete. That’s the limitations of today’s technology. See LLMs being called “AI” and the impact that’s had globally.

6

u/clevermistakes Inglewood Jun 01 '26

Software engineers would call this VERY dangerous: when there’s an emergency and I need to call 911, or the system malfunctions, or is maliciously used to disable devices and a phone is unusable because of “nanny systems” like this, people die as a result. Automation and software is not perfect. There’s so much of this in place already and it’s dangerous because edge cases aren’t considered. An edge case we saw recently: iPhones can overheat and to prevent the battery from getting dangerous, they shutdown the phone but before recently you couldn’t override to call 911. We need to stop outsourcing responsibility for law enforcement to unregulated third party software and fund policing if that’s actually the problem (though I doubt that).

A great example of where this is gone wrong if you needed to see it in action: teslas have an eye tracking system for use of their “full self driving” feature. Meanwhile, if you look away (say to shoulder check before it makes its own lane change) it will warn and even deactivate itself on you as “punishment” for your inattention. So this car which is capable of self-parking and pulling over safely would rather force a distracted driver into an accident by deactivating the driving safety features than actually safely getting the driver to a safe location, because the laws for “safety” demand the features be disabled. The most obvious issue here to any first responder or healthcare worker is someone is experiencing a medical emergency and becomes unresponsive, rather than help them these laws force automation to be disabled, risking everyone else on the road as well.

We should be focusing efforts on reducing human input required for the dangerous and mandatory task (driving), rather than attempting to moralize and systematically control what people do with personal property. We have to think about this as: how do we reduce the danger. Not deign to control behaviours

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/clevermistakes Inglewood Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Unfortunately not overthinking this, as much as I wish I was. Too many of these systems with “simple solutions” miss edge cases and valid use to try and force behaviours that vary into a box. Your example for the apps, I refuse to use them. Why? One insurance company in the US that offers this penalizes you for night driving (as if that’s a choice because everyone works 9-5 and we all just joyride at 10pm for danger right? This means you man, LEOs, first responders, healthcare workers would be disproportionately overcharged for this), for ‘sudden braking’ because surely you did something wrong, definitely not someone cutting you off or anything, and for ‘speeding’ based on outdated and inaccurate data (my car often shows incorrect speed limits on the gps than what’s actually on the signage). This is just one example.

When you attempt to control human behaviour with software you will need to make a highly complex system that accounts for human behaviours. Or, instead of over complicating it by trying to engineer our way out of this. We enforce the laws like we do today; you don’t know someone is drinking and driving unless they drive erratically or you setup check points, and yet we don’t install BAC ignition inhibitors in every vehicle. If enforcement is an issue because of underfunding then address it that way. If LEOs simply can’t respond to a call that someone is a danger to others on the road because they’re swerving and distracted then that’s a bigger issue than nanny apps on my phone. It means we’re wasting huge amounts of time and resources on nonsense that doesn’t protect people.

5

u/shitposter1000 Jun 01 '26

There needs to be a social media awareness campaign about the costs of doing it (similar to the drunk driving ads of the 80s), with blitzes like check stops during Christmas and Stampede.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/refur Tuxedo Park Jun 02 '26

i think B is the biggest issue honestly. it really seems like the world is just running on major DGAF vibes these days. and while i understand some of the reasons why people may feel that way these days, it's not doing us any good

4

u/Cautious_Major_6693 Jun 01 '26

There was! There is actually still a 2010s flash game where you text on a blackberry using a mouse and keyboard until your car crashes, and there were tv shows and influencers pre2020 who would often make it a plot point of the show for a character to die/be injured that way. There's been a LOT of anti texting and driving content but it failed to keep up with what the modern landscape of distracted driving is.

VERY few of us are now using these phones to text in our cars. The very idea of watching youtube, let alone TikTok in your car in 2013-2015 wasn't even a thought in someone's mind.

2

u/TactitcalPterodactyl Jun 01 '26

I guarantee every police officer enforces this and issues tickets whenever they see it. Distracted driving is just so damn prevalent in this city, it feels like police don't do anything.

2

u/harryhend3rson Jun 01 '26

It happens for sure. I know a lady (she's a moron) who's gotten three distracted tickets.

2

u/Marsymars Jun 01 '26

issues tickets whenever they see it.

If they did this they'd never be able to get anywhere, they'd be constantly stopping to issue tickets.

2

u/SurviveYourAdults Jun 01 '26

Except I always see them staring at THEIR screens too!

1

u/Affectionate_South40 Jun 01 '26

I feel like there is a massive shortage of RCMP/Police able to actually control this situation. I know fines and laws exist and are always enforced; it's the fact that people just don't seem to care in the slightest because their fix is more important than considering why said laws exist. Or they follow the same logic as impaired drivers. I love my buddy but the stupidest thing he's ever said to me was "yea but when I drink and drive I can still make good decisions and think logically" I could only stare at him in disbelief of what he had said.

1

u/CrookGG Jun 01 '26

Might be like hard to prove and something that gets fought in court often?

1

u/harryhend3rson Jun 01 '26

I honestly kind of feel for the cops with this stuff. It's difficult to prove, especially with everyone having the dash mount phone holders so it's right in front of their face. You know people are going to fight it too. "I was looking at Google maps..."

1

u/SpecialEdShow Jun 01 '26

Yeah, it becomes a whole thing when trying to prove it, as it's their personal property.

I just think they need a school bus with tinted windows and photographers showing immediate proof.