Driving Without Due Care
 

Are there any rules in writing on what constitutes driving without due care?

Are you allowed to smoke while driving?

Are you allowed to eat a hamburger while driving?

Are you allowed to drink a beverage?

Read this...it might help:
Can you be charged for eating while driving? | Wheels.ca

This is an interesting statement in that article.......

Also curious about this.

I think its stupid that we can't talk on the phone but we can change, eat, drink, smoke or read a book.

I have more control of my car talking on the phone than any of the others above.

The only driving without due care I've personally seen was my friend ripping it in lansdowne parking lot at night...
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No you do not, science has proved otherwise.

Eating, drinking, smoking are momentary things that don't take your concentration away from driving. Talking on the phone is not momentary and requires you to process what is going on in the conversation.

You could be charged for the actual behaviour you exhibited. This was always a charge long before cell phones & texting ever came along and I laid charges back in the late 1980's for due care behaviour. Most of it results in horrendous driving actions/crashes etc so it is easy to identify.

Couple of examples not involving cell phones or eating...car running a stop sign fishtailing across the road, almost hitting the curb and a car in their path (me in an unmarked)...or passing 3 cars (including me in an unmarked) stopped at a yellow light that was turning red to allow 4 small children to cross at an intersection crosswalk and running the red at about 80k in a 50, accelerating hard.

how many points is it for this ticket??

Well, obviously it is stuff like this that "Driving Without Due Care" is intended for... but I just wanted to know whether the simple act of eating in itself is enough to warrant being charged with it, even if you're driving perfectly normally.

The actual movement of eating and smoking won't take my concentration off my road, but fumbling for my pack of cigarettes in my glove compartment, my lighter, then lighting it will. Trying to open a hamburger wrapper will, dropping ketchup onto my clothes then me trying to find a napkin to wipe it off will.
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^ Or grabbing a hot drink and the lid pops off and spills everywhere and you try to clean it up. I'm sure that takes more attention than talking on the phone. I'm not defending people who talk on their phones, I'm just saying that there are worse things that are not illegal.

You have less cognitive control over your driving while talking on the phone.

How much brain power does it take to eat a burger? Not much. Compare that to having a conversation on the phone, thinking, remembering details, etc...

I will say that I don't think we need a dedicated "electronic device" law. The police already had existing laws to deal with people distracted by texting, talking, etc... The number of people I still see texting and driving like idiots amazes me.

If this happens, pull the fuck over and stop.

When did common sense become so uncommon?

The Government feels the need to constantly babysit motorists, so that's certainly not helping to develop common sense.

so if it's so dangerous to be involved in a conversation while driving, why are bluetooth devices allowed? why is talking to passengers allowed? why are moms allowed to carry 5 kids in the back of their minivan and constantly have to pay attention to the kids and not the road.... your logic is flawed. the cellphone law is clearly a cash grab. holding a phone in your hand is exactly the same as holding a can of pop.. except you take your eyes off the road everytime you go to take a drink...

now texting and driving is a different issue. that should be an automatic driving without due care... it's pretty much like driving with your eyes closed half the time... but to tell me that it's "safer" for me to use a handsfree bluetooth device than to hold a phone in my hand.... come on

Bluetooth devices probably shouldn't be allowed, but enforcing that would be a nightmare.

It's the act of holding a conversation with someone who is not in the vehicle that is the key problem.

I'm sure many collisions happen because a driver is distracted by kids fighting in the back seat, or had turned to look at their passenger while talking to them.

No, and I hate to say it (JOKING Sebberry!!)...but Sebberry is right in his post. It is the act of holding a conversation WITH a person...whom you can't see. The dangerous part is not HOW you carry on the conversation..it is that you ARE. When you are talking with someone beside you, although slightly distracting, you get visual cues (like a hand gesture)....the person you are talking to can see that you are busy for a minute and will "shut up"......a smile from you can quite often answer or be a response to the other person etc. When you are talking to someone on the phone, NONE of those things accompany the conversation.......MAKING you concentrate that much harder on that conversation! More concentration on the phone call equals less concentration on the road.....THAT is the dangerous part!

To make the roads full of drivers that are concentrating TOTALLY on the road and driving would be awesome...but unattainable! Even a driver singing to their favorite song on a CD has been distracted..........:whistle:

The decision to ignore the studies that show the mental distraction of both hand held and hands free devices are almost equally destructive and dangerous, was made for political reasons. Studies were available long before they decided to just ban hand held. the power decided to ignore them, in spite of medical advice and pleas from Law enforcement. Same sort of thinking went into a lack of proper implementation of photo radar and the decision to withdraw it in the end.

WHAT????? Am I seeing or reading this right? Zulu and Seb agreeing on something???? :whistle:

Most drivers exceed municipal speed limits by about 10kph. I'm constantly being told that I should drive at the posted speed limit because it is safer than going with the flow. In a sense, it is safer for me to drive 10kph slower than the other drivers.

If photo radar ever came back and everyone drove at the speed limit, I'll continue to apply the logic that driving at 10kph slower than the flow of traffic will keep me safe.

I'll give you something even more wierd that that...the 2 incidents I described
involved the same car and same driver, about 2 years apart. The X walk incident trial was almost over when he was testified that it was all untrue and I was just harassing him over almost killing 4 kids on a crosswalk... just because he almost killed me 2 years earlier. JP thought that was a wonderful admission for him to make. Driver got reamed and fine increased, plus the JP contacted the Supt MV himself over it. Any surprise that he was driving 5.0? JP told him to never ever appear before him again in any courtroom as HE had a long memory too. JP and I are both retired now. One of our treasured moments from traffic court.

Can you say "Freudian slip"?

That's ironic from the person wanting more babysitting.

Say what? When have I ever said I want more government monitoring and control?

Sometimes in court the real truth accidentally slips out. :)

Yawn, you constantly want the government to change the rules to deal with people's bad behaviour, rather than putting the blame on the people themselves. :facepalm:

Clearly you don't actually read what I post.

Drivers need to take responsibility when they screw up, (i.e. crash), cause someone else to crash, etc... but the government needs to recognize that regardless of the potential penalties, people will still occasionally screw up, either on purpose or by mistake.

Red light cameras for example don't stop people from running red lights. Even the government has come out sand said this. So what they need to do is ensure that when such a screw-up occurs, they've taken steps to reduce the possibility of a collision (i.e. proper light timing)

I've put the evidence in front of you several times now, yet you and others continue to ignore it go along with whatever the government wants you to hear.