604 Now
Announcements

ICBC Testing New App That Blocks Phone Usage While Driving

ICBC

While some people seem to find it impossible to put their phones down while driving, they may soon have no choice.

Distracted driving now causing more motor vehicle related deaths than drunk driving. Owing to this, the government has increased penalties for multiple offences. You can now be fined a staggering $2000 for being caught twice in three years driving distracted.

Although increasing penalties may keep some people off of their phones behind the wheel, it hasn’t made a big enough impact. Indeed, the penalties have already been stiff: simply eating while driving will land you with a whopping $368 fine.

Now, ICBC and the government are launching two pilot programs aimed at preventing distracted driving with smartphones.

[sjnow-ad-large-leaderboard]

ICBC and Government Combat Distracted Driving

The first one uses blue-tooth technology to capture images of people in their cars that sends video back to police, thus catching perpetrators in the action each and every time.

The second one literally prevents the smartphone from being used while the vehicle is being driven; an app would be installed within the device that would sense when the vehicle was in use.

The pilot programs are set to launch in January, and ICBC hope to use the findings to inform future decisions. In addition, they hope to use information from the pilots to improve how insurance rates are set.

Log in or create an account to save content

Become a local insider