Texting while driving is the act of composing, sending, reading text messages, email, or making other similar use of the web on a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle.

CAA recently conducted a poll in which they surveyed Canadians about their road safety concerns. While drinking and driving has been in the lead for over 10 years, these survey results revealed a cultural shift, as 85% of respondents feel texting while driving is now the number one road safety issue today. The poll also showed that Canadians have every reason to be concerned about the dangers of texting and driving. Young Canadians are texting while driving on a regular basis.

This is despite the fact that all provinces and territories, except for Nunuvut, have some form of cell phone/distracted driving legislation in place. Newfoundland was the first province to adopt a distracted driving law in 2003, with the Northwest Territories being the most recent to implement such a law in January, 2012.

For more information on your province's distracted driving laws, visit CAA's Distracted Driving Laws in Canada page.

The issue of texting while driving cannot be ignored - CAA indicates that texting or e-mailing on a cell phone makes a driver 23 times more likely to be in a crash or near crash event compared with non-distracted drivers.