Const. Marc Taraso couldn’t believe his eyes.
But when the Halton Region police officer pulled over the driver on Dundas St. and Meadowridge Dr. in Oakville, his concerns were realized.
Halton Region police Const. Marc Taraso couldn’t believe his eyes so he pulled over the driver on Dundas St. and Meadowridge Dr. in Oakville. The driver was watching the Maple Leafs game against the Ottawa Senators on his iPhone just after 7:15 p.m. Saturday. (Const. Marc Taraso / Twitter)
“I wish I was joking,” he said. “I saw the game playing on their dash and thought to myself ‘no way.’ Unbelievable ticket.”
The man was charged with distracted driving, a charge which carried a $615 fine, three demerit points and a three-day driver’s licence suspension.
I dont care how much of a die hard @MapleLeafs fan you are; YOU CAN NOT WATCH THE GAME ON YOUR PHONE WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING!!!!!! Theres this thing in your car, its called a radio. It has the @FAN590 on the AM dial – tune in there. Unbelievable #Ticket😡😡😡 pic.twitter.com/Txfsk3ouhv
— Cst. Marc Taraso (@MT9345) March 30, 2019
The stiffer penalties for distracted driving didn’t appear to have a lot of impact in the early days of 2019. In the first 17 days of the year, there were 79 distracted driving tickets handed out in Halton. That was down from 96 issued during the same period in 2018, a drop of 17.8 per cent.
But the message does seem to be finally getting through. As of March 20, Halton police had handed out 327 distracted driving tickets. That’s down from 620 over the same period last year, a decrease of 47.3 per cent.
Taraso said distracted driving accounts for almost 40 per cent of all the tickets he’s issued in 2019.
The Leafs lost 4-2.
Source: The Toronto Star