When a business associate was pulled over for speeding the other day, the RCMP officer stated that he could have given him a ticket for having his phone in the cup holder. The officer said the phone has to be at or around eye level. Is this true? – Joe, Vancouver
You can keep your phone in the cupholder – but don’t touch it, or even look at it.
“It used to be that police [in British Columbia] would issue tickets to people for having a cellphone in the cup holder,” said Kyla Lee, a Vancouver criminal defence lawyer. “And we challenged it and got a B.C. Supreme Court judgment [in 2019] making it very clear that you are allowed to have a phone loose in the vehicle as long as you’re not touching it.”
Under the law in B.C., you’re using a phone if you’re holding it, touching it, using any of its functions or watching it.
One ticket will cost you $582 – a $368 fine plus four demerit points, which come with a $214 fee. If you get two tickets within three years, you will face up to $2,000 in fines and fees – not including potential increases to your car insurance rate.
Even if your phone is in a customized holder mounted on the dash, window or air vent, you are not permitted to touch or use the phone – except to accept, decline or end a hands-free call. You can’t be scrolling through playlists or web pages, Lee said.
“You are not allowed to touch it to change your GPS directions or to change your song on iTunes or anything like that,” Lee said.
If your phone is connected to the car but isn’t mounted, you can play music from it through the car’s speakers – but again, you can’t touch the phone.
“They used to ticket for [listening to music on an unmounted phone] too,” Lee said. “But again, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that it’s not a ticketable offence.”
If you just glance at your phone in the cupholder but you’re not reading a text, FaceTiming or watching TikTok, police could still ticket you, Lee said.
“I have seen people ticketed for looking at the phone, even if they’re not watching a movie or something like that,” Lee said. “Watching the screen of an electronic device is an act that’s specifically prohibited in the legislation, but there have been no court cases that have really distinguished between looking [at a phone] and watching something.”
B.C. Highway Patrol didn’t immediately respond to our questions.
While you can have your phone loose in a cupholder, centre console or in the passenger seat, you can’t have it in your lap.
“Having it in your lap is considered holding it,” Lee said.
Technically, it’s also illegal to use Siri to activate your phone without touching it and then dictate a text – even if your phone is connected to your car through Apple CarPlay, Lee said.
“You can’t dictate a text message or an e-mail while driving because texting or e-mailing while driving is specifically prohibited,” Lee said. “I’ve never seen anyone get ticket for it, though – as it would be nearly impossible to prove.”
In 2022, the most recent year for which the numbers are available, there were 26,728 charges in B.C. for breaking this law.
“The vast majority of distracted driving tickets in B.C. happen with officers patrolling at red lights or stopped traffic in construction or gridlock,” Lee said.
Could you get out of a ticket by arguing that you’d quickly touched it but weren’t using it?
If an officer tickets you for improperly touching a phone that’s mounted in a holder, they would need to show specifically what you were doing, Lee said. “They usually have that information because what they’re doing is waiting for people to be at red lights … and you start scrolling through your texts and they see that,” Lee said. “They’re standing outside your window and you’re so engrossed in your phone, you don’t even notice them.”
While the rules vary by province, you’d generally have to be holding, touching or looking at a phone to get a ticket.
In Quebec, for instance, a court ruled that a driver broke the law when he looked down at a phone sitting in his cupholder to check GPS directions while he was stopped at a red light.
But what about that big, distracting built-in infotainment screen in most newer cars?
Most provinces’ distracted driving laws specifically address hand-held device use – and that doesn’t usually include the screen in your car.
If fiddling with your car’s built-in screen causes you to swerve dangerously or get into a crash, you could get a ticket for driving without due care and attention, Lee said. But if there was no crash or dangerous driving involved, you wouldn’t get a ticket simply for shuffling through Spotify playlists on your car’s screen like you would on your phone, Lee said.
That’s why Lee thinks distracted driving laws should be updated to include infotainment screens.
“This law has not changed since it was introduced in 2010,” she said. “If you think back to the type of screens we had in cars in 2010 compared to the type of screens we have now, the law is just out of date.”
Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and put ‘Driving Concerns’ in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada’s a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.
Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and put ‘Driving Concerns’ in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada’s a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.