Is there anything more annoying than being stuck in traffic behind someone gabbing endlessly on their cellphone and not paying attention to the road? Or the person who is texting while changing lanes in front of you and cutting you off almost causing an accident?
If the Alberta government has its way, these kind of drivers will soon be getting a $172 fine for doing just that.

This cellphone ban was rejected back in 2008 but with the growing trend of multitasking while driving, it would be beneficial to crack down on driver distractions and prevent accidents before they happen.
According to Alberta Prime Time, the statistics say 28 per cent of Alberta drivers admitted to talking on handheld cells, compared to the 8 and 19 per cent elsewhere. Talking on your phone, fixing your hair or make-up and fooling around with the radio switches are little things we all do every day while driving in our cars. These things we don’t even think about. But let’s face it, $172 is $172. That could be your groceries, your phone bill or part of your monthly rent.
Even more so, every driver’s life is on the line every time you do something as simple as getting into a vehicle and driving to school or work. That alone should be incentive to leave your phone alone while driving. Turn it off, leave it on silent mode or vibrate, hide it from yourself where you won’t see it and prevent yourself from being distracted.
The fewer distractions you have while driving, the safer you will be. A ban on cellphones while driving means that the 80 per cent of accidents will go down. According to the Calgary Herald, a University of Calgary researcher says that this ban will save as much as $36 million in health care and emergency services every year.
So, it’s costing millions of dollars not having the ban, not to mention the cost of lives as a result of accidents. While cellphone junkies may see this ban as an inconvenience, what they will soon see is the damage that will be prevented in putting down their phones and focussing on the road.