For those of you who love to drive and talk on the phone, as of January 1, 2010 in BC, you must do without the talk.

Did you know that in British Columbia you can’t talk and text on electronic devices while driving? Yes, as of January 1, 2010, it’s illegal to use hand-held devices in BC.

Our kindly police officers have said they’ll give us all a break and won’t give out pricey tickets until February 1, 2010. It appears we have a “cooling off” period in BC.

Notice too, that not only do we get a 30 day grace period, but our law is a baby-step process applying to hand-held devices only. Yes, we can still use hands-free devices. Bring on the headsets and voice recognition. Many other jurisdictions enacted the full ban that applied to hand-held and hands-free devices.

The new law prohibiting hand-held devices comes with a price – a ticket price that is. If you get caught using your hand-held device, it’ll cost you $167.

For those learner or novice BC drivers, you can’t even use hands-free devices. The new law mandates that you not talk to anyone except live passengers.

So why the new law that will no doubt impede our driving lifestyle where we evade driving boredom by conversing our entire commutes? Death, destruction, widows, orphans, and injury.

After watching other jurisdictions pass similar laws, our BC government decided to follow suit in Fall 2009, which is when our hand-held-device-while-driving-law was passed.

It’s probably going to be a hard habit for many people to break. We have a bonus month; but I can envision just how difficult it’ll be not to answer that ringing phone while cruising down the highway.

With mobile phones practically becoming the new personal computer, this type of law will probably get drivers to again focus on driving rather than working and being entertained.

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