Province holding public hearings to see what Islanders think of proposal to ban using phones while driving

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The Canadian Press

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A P.E.I. MLA says banning cellphones while driving will leave rural parts of the province at a serious disadvantage.

Robert Henderson, the MLA for O'Leary-Inverness, says he regularly talks on his cellphone while driving. He lives in Freeland, near Tyne Valley, which is more than 100 kilometres from Charlottetown.

"In rural areas, we are further away from the centres of commerce so there is going to a high propensity of traveling on the road," Henderson says.

"The same from a business perspective. You are traveling longer distances so if you're further away, you have to spend more time in car, so these people will not be able to take calls."

A legislative standing committee plans to holding public hearings across the Island to gauge the public's opinion on whether they want to prohibit drivers from using handheld cellular telephones while driving. Those hearings will be held next month.

But Transportation and Public Works Minister Ron MacKinley is already sold on the idea. He's instructed his staff to write legislation for the fall session that will effectively ban the use of cellphones while driving.

Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec have already banned the use of hand-held cellphones while driving. So too have seven U.S. states.

Ontario and Alberta are also considering legislation to stop people from using hand-held cellphones while driving.

"Being minister of the department, I'm not blind to reading papers," he says, adding he believes the vast majority of Islanders want to ban the use hand-held cellphones while driving.

But MacKinley says he won't act until the public hearings are held and the legislative standing committee has had its say.

"I'm not doing anything until this committee reports back to the House," said MacKinley, during an interview conducted on his cellular phone, while parked in his yard.

The transportation minister is flip flopping on the issue.

After he was elected, MacKinley said he would not support a ban.

"But you gotta remember it's not about what Ronnie MacKinley thinks, it's what the general public wants. I'm a servant of the general public."

Farm tractors that are not registered for the highway will be excluded from the ban.

Janice Sherry, the chair of the legislative standing committee, says she doesn't believe the province has decided to ban cellphones so she hopes people will come out and have their say.

"I don't believe anything is etched in stone," she says.

Sherry described some of the statistics provided to the committee as startling.

Those included studies that say people are four to six times more likely to be involved in a crash if they are talking while driving, and that people talking on a phone while driving could be compared to a drunk driver.

But Henderson says the research also showed the number of accidents has not fallen in provinces that have banned the use of cellphones while driving.

Studies suggest hands-free cellphones can be equally dangerous because the driver's mental attention is on the conversation, not the road.