Pylons stuck under the vehicle after Tenille Lafontaine’s second run of a distracted driving course. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

By Lisa Schick

SGI distracts drivers to show the dangers

Oct 2, 2019 | 11:11 AM

Distracted driving is one of the biggest problems on Saskatchewan’s roads, and on Tuesday four local celebrities learned what being distracted behind the wheel can do, on the RCMP driving course.

The race was set up by SGI as police officers start looking out for October’s driving spotlight, distracted driving.

In the first round, drivers were told to use their phone and given different tasks like texting and taking a selfie while winding their way through the course as quickly as possible. In the second round, they were given food and did the same course.

In the last round, they were able to drive the course without distractions and see how their times differed.

“That was a real eye-opener to all the distractions that you encounter on the road every day that you don’t realize are distractions until they’re all coming at you at once,” said Tenille Lafontaine, blogger and media personality.

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Lafontaine picked up a few pylons under her vehicle on the way through the track and even went off the track once while fiddling with lip balm.

Lafontaine didn’t win the distracted driving race trophy.

“We’re having a bit of fun today, but there’s a serious message. We do want people, when they are driving, to just drive,” said Tyler McMurchy, manager of media relations with SGI.

“What we’re doing today will hopefully highlight how easy it is to drive without distractions, and how hard it is to drive while you’re distracted.”

McMurchy said in 2018 there were more than 6,000 crashes where drivers weren’t paying attention or being distracted was a factor — those caused more than 700 injuries and 22 deaths.

A distracted driving ticket, for a first offence, is $280 and four points off the driver’s licence. On a second offence the person’s vehicle gets impounded for a week.

McMurchy said there are strong signals from the government that those penalties could end up be strengthened further.

But, McMurchy said, SGI doesn’t want people to get these tickets, and the easiest way to do that is for drivers to put down their phones.