Distracted driving crackdown a joint effort involving police, insurance, community [Video]

Distracted driving causes more fatal collisions on average in Alberta than anywhere else in Canada – a big reason why getting stopped and ticketed by police can have a massive impact on a driver’s insurance.

Police in Edmonton are cracking down on distracted driving now more than ever before.

“I think some people are getting the message,” Sgt. Kerry Bates of the Edmonton Police Service’s traffic safety unit told CTV News Edmonton on Monday. “I equate it back to when seat belts were legislated. It took a long time for people to eventually buy into it.”

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Now, the push is on to get drivers to put down cellphones while behind the wheel to save lives.

From the most recent compiled statistics, Alberta has seen distracted driving as the cause of more than 25 per cent of fatal crashes in the …