Const. Marc Taraso couldn't believe his eyes.

But, when the Halton Regional Police officer pulled over the driver on Dundas Street and Meadowridge Drive in Oakville, his concerns were realized.

Taraso said the driver was watching the game — which pitted the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Ottawa Senators — on his iPhone just after 7:15 p.m. on Saturday (March 30).

"I wish I was joking," he said. "I saw the game playing on their dash and thought to myself 'no way.' Unbelievable ticket."

The man was charged with distracted driving, a charge which carried a $615 fine, three demerit points and a three-day driver's licence suspension.

The stiffer penalties for distracted driving didn’t appear to have a lot of impact in the early days of 2019. In the first 17 days of the year, there were 79 distracted driving tickets handed out in Halton. That was down from 96 issued during the same period in 2018, a drop of 17.8 per cent.

The message does seem to be finally getting through. As of March 20, Halton police had handed out 327 distracted driving tickets. That’s down from 620 over the same period last year, a decrease of 47.3 per cent.

Taraso said distracted driving accounts for almost 40 per cent of all the tickets he’s issued in 2019.

-with files from Herb Garbutt



