Hi Adam. While I agree that texting while driving is very dangerous and should be punishable more often than it is, I don't believe that talking on the phone (or CB radio) is even in the same category as texting, putting makeup on, flossing your teeth, changing your clothes, reading the newspaper, clipping your fingernails, or caressing the stupid dog standing on your lap with it's paws on the steering wheel!! Talking on the phone, whether it be handheld or hands free is no more unsafe than drinking a cup of coffee or eating a bagel or gawking at a GPS! I am very guilty of talking on the phone while driving (I have Motorola M800 hard-mounted phones in my trucks) and I am positive that it is safer for me to drive down the highway at road speed, getting my directions or instructions from my customers than it would be for me to STOP my Kenworth and 16 wheel lowboy with it's oversize load on the side of the road and impede ALL the passing traffic while I chat on the phone! I know that any safety advocate will say that all phone calls should be made before you get out on the road, but the system does not allow for that! Example: Load bulldozer and phone permit office to order permit. Chain down load and wait for permit#. Drive out onto highway and permit office calls you back with a revision to your route. You let it ring and they'll leave a message which you will check next time you stop. Before you stop, you come to the bridge that is under construction that the permit office told you about in the message which you didn't get yet. You don't fit across bridge. Many cars and trucks have to stop, back up, get out of way while you turn around in traffic jam! OR: Phone rings, so you jam on the brakes and stop immediately to talk on the phone and now you are creating a hazard far more dangerous than if you were just to keep going with the flow of traffic, especially if you are hauling your bulldozer which is wayyy wider than the shoulder of the road. Distracted driving is the problem, not just cell phones!

Boy, lots of excuses. Just use a wireless head set for all your phone calls and keep both hands on the wheel!

I am trying to prove a point Scott... and I suppose you are too. With both hands on the wheel, how are you going to get through all those gears??? Also, even though I'm from backwoods Alberta, I actually considered the wireless headset! They work fine on those little smartphones in urban type areas, but when you actually go where vans and reefers don't go, you will find that they are not an option and if you need to use the phone in many of the places that we have to go when hauling construction and oilfield equipment you will probably be using a hard-mounted 3 watt phone which does have a hands free option for those that need to keep both hands on the wheel. However, some of us drive trucks with a 6 speed transmission, 4 speed auxiliary trans. and 2-speed rear axles. Unfortunately, it is not possible to keep both hands on the wheel, phone or no phone!

The problem here is that it's been proven through study that cell phone bans do not lower the number of cell phone users. So they're ineffective and useless.

Nevermind the number of drivers I've seen with laptops mounted to the dash, fiddling with their Qualcomm (or sat communicator) while driving, etc.

Since most accidents (over 90% I believe) are caused by four-wheelers, I think they should be the focus. Drivers have enough problems with all the new regs the feds keep coming up with.

way to much phone, remember you are leaving a trail, your insurance will not cover if your phone was active, yes its the first part of the investagation leaves you open for a personal law suit, hang it up

Even using a headset requires you to press buttons quite often after calls are made to retrieve messages, punch in passwords or further migrate through the voice mail commands when leaving a message for others. You are still breaking the law by doing so.

There needs to be full voice activation software on all phone systems to accommodate the heads free technology otherwise you are still looking down at the keys.

I just shut mine off so I can avoid those that are using theirs, hands free or not. The issue is about distraction not about what you're doing with your hands, isn't it?

We've got so many rules and regulations, surely we don't need any more. Cell phones have been such an advantage. Too bad people don't just use them for business, keep the talk short, and only use them in light traffic. Common sense would go a long way.

You are right, Dutch, we don't need any more rules and regulations! There have been several types of phones available in trucks since the mid 70's, so why is it that it is such a big problem just in the last 4-5 years? For almost a century, truck drivers have been able to drive and look in the mirrors and at the guages and even take their hands off the wheel to shift through all the gears without any problems, but now truck drivers can't talk on the phone or radio while they drive??! I am thinking it is the quality of the drivers that has eroded, especially in the last decade, and nobody wants to admit it, so they are blaming it on cellphones and CB radios. It is time that the industry admits that all of the policy/procedure without any extra $$ has driven away the quality drivers and replaced them with the 'new breed', who have brought many problems with them. Blaming something like cellphones for the problems is not going to fix anything!

Someone was listening! http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/02/23/toronto-dstracted-driving-blitz528.html

Aaron, I agree that the majority of the accidents are caused by 4 wheelers. I think that's where the major emphasis should be is on controlling them. Stephen I agree with your 9:32 p.m. posting. If drivers and O/O's were paid a decent wage and not unnecessarily regulated to death then maybe more of the QUALITY drivers would still be on the road. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there isn't still quality drivers out there, it's just that unfortunately they are getting out numbered by the wanna be truckers. In my opinion a good driver knows when to talk on the radio or phone and knows when to put the device down or turn it off.

I find that the use of hand-held phones is no more distracting than head sets. The distraction
is that your mind is with the person and the subject that you're discussing. That's what's distracting. This can cause you to forget to signal lane changes or to drive past the exit you were intending to take. The drivers' hands are present and ready to use; But the mind is far away.

Glad to see someone else, has parked commenta nd controversey. Now let's see if I get this right. Some people say YEs and some people say No! Well lets wade in a little deeper.

If a Bus driver in Toronto can be fired for doing it, then so should a truck driver, or for that matter, all of the big boys and girls driving on the highway yaking away like there;'s no tomorrow. We all know who they are. The ones that all of a sudden drop from 100 KM/H to 70-80 KM/H as they need to concentrate on the telephone or the text they are sending. If as the new law has been passed, and Citizen's arrest are legal, (Catch a THEIF) stealing flowers in CHINATOWN in Downtown TO. then why not snap a few pictures and post on them internet, or better yet, send them to the OPP RCMP OR WHATEVER LOCAL AUTHORITY YOU CHOOSE. Evidence is pretty concrete. Let them handle it. Warnings should be kept on file and then a second warning should result in a ticket.

We may have cowboys taking lots of pcitures, but I would rather that than an accident, because someone wnated to text a friend "SEE YOU IN 5 AT THE BAR ORDER ME A DOUBLE"

Hey Kevin-what would be safer about taking a picture while you are driving than talking on the phone while driving??? Oh, I guess you were gonna stop to get your photo-evidence that I was talking on my phone...Let me know how that's gonna work!! Anyway, I'll ask again, like I did in a previous comment, why is the talking on the phone such a problem just in the last few years when we have had phones in trucks since the 70's? I am thinking it has a lot to do with the caliber of 'the new breed' of driver that has shown up in the last few years after almost all of the good drivers have left this industry! Also, why doesn't anyone realize that when we had analog phones which were not capable of sending/receiving texts and pictures, we were not having all these phone-caused accidents? I agree that texting or taking pictures while driving is REALLY STUPID, right up there with eating a bagel with one hand and sucking on your Tim's coffee which is in your other hand, or putting makeup on, or having a stupid mutt standing on your lap with it's paws on the steering wheel! It is distracted driving that is the biggest problem, coupled with a very low-skilled generation of drivers, not talking on the phone!

In light of the current Distracted Driving Campaigns by Provincial Police, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Toronto Metropolitan Police, RCMP and that every Canadian province has enacted distracted driving legislation, I am confident that the statistics prove that the instances of abuse of the legislation is getting worse. According to my conversations with the OPP and other police forces, due to the level of abuse of the legislation, things are going to heat up for business users and non business users in the coming months.

I am confident that you will find that the penalties for not driving safe, legal and responsibly are in fact more costly than most think. In Ontario, most consider the $155 fine a minimal penalty to pay, so they continue to abuse the law. Now that more than 7,000 cell phone related tickets have been issued and the related death rate increased (37), whether you or an employee, driver, operator is stopped and charged with Careless Driving associated with distracted driving/ cell phone use and not obeying the Hands Free law, you face up to $2,000 plus 6 demerit points. (Quebec $167 + 3 demerit points, New Brunswick min. $172 + 3 points; Saskatchewan $280 + 4 points etc.).

To answer some of the issues, there are software solutions (www.fleetsafercanada.com) available to put your cell phone in safe mode to lock the keyboard and screen, no texting, speaking, browsing, emailing!! If an important call comes in, it goes straight to bluetooth and speaker phone. If it is an email, a response is sent out saying you are driving and will respond shortly. The laws in most provinces permit the pushing of a single button.....here you go. If you need to listen to emails, then you have a product like VoiceMate to convert emails to voice and vice versa. There is robust, inexpensive cell phone technology available to drive safe, legal and responsibly, so if I may recommend, pls check it out. Drive SAFE!

Hey Micheal, are there software solutions or any other solutions available that prevent you from eating a burger and drinking a Tim's double/double while you are driving? How about an automatic dog petting device so your pet can be entertained while you drive with both hands on the wheel? What about something that reads the newspaper to you while you drive? Talking on the phone is not the only thing that distracts people while they are driving, so why are some people so worried about cell phone use but not any of these other stupid, unsafe things that we all see several times every day???