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Eyes Up! Ontario’s New Distracted Driving Laws

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

Welcome to 2019!  While the New Year is a wonderful time to reflect, organize, plan, appreciate and look forward with enthusiasm and gratuity, this year in Ontario it is also an important time to familiarize ourselves with the new laws for Distracted Driving.

Working in Ontario’s insurance industry, our role as Occupational Therapists is to help people recover from car accidents.  While this work is both rewarding and fulfilling, it is also fraught with heartache and loss as we meet and work with people who have endured so much, and sometimes “lost everything” with their accident.  We see loss of income, function, or hope.  Sometimes there is the corresponding death of a child, spouse, friend or family member. There is a loss of roles, purpose, and meaning.  Occasionally an accident causes poverty and loss of shelter, independence and a means of transportation.  Recovery is not easy, it always takes longer than people expect or want, and the insurance system is designed to challenge the client (oddly their “customer”) for what they want and need to get better.  Talk to anyone in the system and most (all?) say they just “want their old life back”.  It is important that we listen to them and their stories and do all we can to prevent ourselves from causing someone else’s loss, or from becoming a “client” ourselves.

Yet, despite all the ongoing education and media about how unsafe distracted driving is, I still see it daily.  I can typically count 3-5 people per day that I see driving and texting or texting at a stop light.  The easiest ones to spot are on the highways as you see them drifting lanes and quickly over-correcting.  I suppose all of these offenders believe “it won’t happen to me”…until it does.  Hopefully, these new laws will scare them straight, or they will be ticketed and stop this unsafe behavior before they hurt themselves or others.

So, what are the new distracted driving laws in Ontario (https://www.ontario.ca/page/distracted-driving):

Distracted driving is no longer limited to just texting and making phone calls. It also now includes anything from simply holding an electronic device in one’s hand to eating while behind the wheel.

  • Simply holding an electronic device in your hands (hand-held communication during driving is against the law)
  • Using a cellular phone to talk, text, check maps or switch playlists
  • Eating (there may not be a license suspension, but the RCMP warn you could be fined or given six demerits depending on the food)
  • Reading books or documents
  • Typing a destination into the GPS

What are the consequences:

  • First offence: 3 days suspension and $1,000 fine
  • Second offence: 7 days suspension and $2,000 fine
  • Three or more offences: 30 days suspension, $3,000 fine and six demerit points

For Novice Drivers (G1, G2, M1 or M2 license) the rules are different and include:

  • First offence: 30 days suspension and $615-$1000 fine
  • Second offence: 90 days suspension and $615-$2000 fine
  • Three or more offences: Cancellation of your license, $615-$3,000 fine

So, what is allowed:

  • a hands-free device (e.g. Bluetooth) but only to turn it on and off
  • a mounted device (e.g. phone, GPS) as long as it is secure – not moving around while driving

What do you have to lose by being a Distracted Driver?  Maybe nothing, or maybe everything: your physical, mental or emotional function, your job, spouse, house, car, your independence and freedom, your pain-free “do what I want when I want” physical and mental abilities…or maybe you don’t lose those, you just cause the loss of those for others which might launch you into a lawsuit that takes years to resolve and threatens every asset you have and the livelihood of you or your family.  Or, maybe it just riddles you with guilt as you live every day with the knowledge that you killed or hurt someone.  And all for a text or a call?  Or to multi-purpose driving and eating a hamburger?  Sorry, but nothing is more important than the protection of the health and wellbeing of ourselves, our family, and others.

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How to Achieve Your Goals — The Secret Sauce

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

What if I told you that there was one easy way to achieve the goals you have set for yourself?  Could it be that simple?  People are complicated creatures, true.  But if you have taken the time to set goals, are you measuring these and achieving them?  Are you working on your goals every day?

Here is the secret sauce…with every fork in the road, and there are tons of them, ask yourself: which decision aligns with my goals?

Let’s take health as an example.  Your goal is to lose weight, be more active, or be less breathless at the top of the stairs.  So you get to work and the first decision is: should I take the elevator or the stairs?  Then it is lunch and you have the option to work at your desk or go out for a short walk.  Or you don’t bring a lunch and need to decide if you should buy pop or water.  The salad or burger.  With each of these examples, one decision aligns with your goals and one does not. Yet if you continuously choose the option that aligns with your goals, results will follow.  This is true even if you make a small decision in the right direction – like taking the stairs for one flight then catching the elevator for the rest of the ride.  Or instead of ordering the salad, you just choose to not order the fries.

Using my life as an example, I have five key goal areas:  health, family, career, finances and personal growth.  Every evening I have the option of bringing my computer home to continue working into the night.  To do so may align with a financial goal of earning a suitable income, and a career goal to run a successful business, but it negates two other important goals of health (working means I will not exercise), and family (working means I won’t be spending time with my children).  So, I have a conundrum.  But in these cases, the reality is that my day at work has already been spent on my career and financial goals, while my other goals have taken a backburner to work time.  So, considering this, aligning my evening time with two different goals helps me to make the important decision to leave the computer at the office, minus the guilt that comes from leaving some work unfinished.

Yes, achieving goals takes discipline, but it is far easier to make small consistent choices, then to make a drastic change that might not be sustainable.  So, on the path to awesomeness that involves you setting goals and blowing these out of the water, just ask yourself daily, as you need to make decisions around your behavior and time, “which option here will help me to achieve my goal(s)?” Then, as you align your decisions with your top priorities, results will follow.

 

It is the New Year — a great time to set goals for the year ahead.  Take a look at our Goal Planning Guide to help you set and achieve your goals in 2019!

 

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O-Tip of the Week: How to Actually Achieve Your New Year’s Resolutions!

Our O-Tip of the week series delivers valuable “OT-Approved Life Hacks” to provide you with simple and helpful solutions for living. 

For the month of January, our O-Tip series will provide you with ways to kick bad habits and establish good ones.  This week we look at how to set yourself up for success with New Year’s resolutions.

The start of a new year brings with it the opportunity to start something new or make positive changes by setting goals or resolutions.  Many start the year with exciting plans to achieve these goals, however, research shows that most people “give up” before the month of January is over.  How can you achieve resolution success?  Take a look at our OT-approved tips to help you accomplish your New Year’s Resolutions.

The Complete Guide to New Year’s Resolution Success

 

 “Today is the first blank page of a 365-page book.  Write a good one.” 

 

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The Twelve Days of Inspiration: Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of inspiration, my OT gave to me…

A 2018 CNN Hero who suffered a traumatic injury leaving her paralyzed, but, with the help of some amazing technology is able to walk again.  Because of the amazing opportunities this technology provided her, she began an organization to help others have this life-changing experience.  Here is the story of Amanda Boxtel and her organization, Bridging Bionics.

CNN Heroes:  Bionic woman skis, bikes and helps others thrive after paralysis

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The Twelve Days of Inspiration: Day Ten

On the tenth day of inspiration, my OT gave to me…

The story of a group of people in wheelchairs who pulled a 128-tonne airplane in the effort to break a world record and to raise money and awareness to help people with disabilities learn to fly.  Here is the story of Wheels4Wings.

Access and Mobility Professional:  100 different wheelchairs combine to pull 128-tonne plane