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Woman Filmed Texting at the Wheel by Motorcyclist Gets Three Charges

Last week we showed you a short video caught by the helmet cam of a Canadian motorcyclist featuring a woman driver that was too busy with her phone to pay any attention to the road ahead.
Biker confronting driver 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from LiveLeak
We've all been witnesses to similar scenes, but most of the times we choose to ignore, thinking it may lead to an unwanted confrontation. What we fail to realize is that allowing that person to continue mixing driving with browsing on the smartphone is potentially dangerous for everyone on the road. So it's not exaggerated to say that it's our civic duty to do something about it.

The best course of action is to talk to that person, explain why what they're doing is wrong and ask them to reconsider. However, more times than not, our plea will probably be dismissed - if not ignored altogether as was the initial case with the encounter mentioned before.

It turns out that recording bad drivers and reporting them works because that woman has just been charged with three traffic offenses, including careless driving. The Ottawa police reviewed the recording and decided that her behavior was reckless and potentially dangerous. Erik Hanna, the man on the bike, will not be charged, even though he too could be seen impeding the woman in the Toyota FJ Cruiser on purpose, even if he did have a good motive.

She went and saw a lawyer. The lawyer called us and said, ‘I have the lady in my office.’ So she talked to the investigator and made arrangements to come and see us at 11 o’clock,” said Sgt. Mark Gatien quoted by Ottawa Citizen. After a close look at the footage, the initial charge of unsafe lane change was moved to the more serious one of careless driving. “[..] if you look at the video, you can see behind the motorcycle in the motorcycle’s mirrors. So she is behind, pulls out, almost wings him, and comes back in again,” Gatien said.

In the end, the unnamed driver garnered a $490 fine and six demerit points for the careless driving charge, another $490 but just three demerit points for distracted driving, and one more fine of an unspecified amount for failing to notify the authorities of a change of address. So, there you have it, over $1,000 in fines, an unenviable Internet fame, and nine demerit points, all for something that could certainly have waited a few more minutes.

Here's the video again, in case you missed it:

[LIVELEAK=http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b4f_1472264193]
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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