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Novel approaches used to get the message out about phone distraction danger in cars

Distracted driving has come to rival impaired driving as a threat to road safety, forcing police to tackle it just as aggressively.

That means cracking down on the use of mobile phones for talking and texting. There are plenty of other distractions, such as eating or fiddling with the stereo, but U.S. data suggest more than a fifth of all auto collisions involve the use of phones.

B.C. police data on distracted driving between 2008 and 2011 found it was the third leading cause of fatal accidents, averaging 91 deaths a year.

Texting is considered especially hazardous, with drivers taking their eyes of the road for at least five seconds at a time.

Alberta, which according to Transport Canada has the highest percentage of observed driver cell phone use in Canada, is taking a blunt approach, rolling out a new awareness and enforcement campaign provocatively called "Crotches Kill."

[ Related: Police use hearse to help with distracted driver blitz ]

The province has a tough distracted-driving law, with 19,000 convictions in its first year of operation – 95 per cent involving hand-held devices, according to The Canadian Press.

But motorists still aren't getting the message, says RCMP Supt. Howard Eaton, the province's traffic boss.

"We are still attending crashes caused by driver inattention and we still see people talking on the phone, texting or even watching movies," Eaton told CTV News.

The $380,000 campaign features online, radio, billboard and poster ads, coupled to a stepped-up police enforcement effort.

"We know what you're doing down there," the posters say.

Alberta Transportation says it calls attention to drivers who try to hide their texting by leaving their phones in their laps and asks people to think about how long it takes to send a text message.

The enforcement blitz, which runs until the end of February, has already generated 200 tickets since the beginning of the month, double the number from the same period last year, CP reported.

Police are also using novel methods to try and snare phone-using miscreants.

Toronto cops have equipped a hearse as a police ghost car and are using it issue $150 distracted-driving tickets as part of their crack-down this week.

[ Related: Stronger distracted driving punishments could be coming to Ontario ]

"I was a little shocked to see a hearse beside me and an officer step out of it," the driver who identified himself only as Andy told CP24 after being ticketed for using his phone at a red light.

In Victoria, a phone-using driver could be ratted out from a transit bus. Police have begun riding buses, which allow them to look down into cars and easily spot drivers using their phones in their laps, the Victoria Times Colonist reported. The information is then relayed to officers in a police cruiser travelling behind the bus, who make the bust.

"The numbers don’t lie. You are four times more likely to be involved in an accident if you are using a cellphone," said suburban Saanich Police Sgt. Steve Eassie. "You’re 23 times more likely to get in a crash if you are texting.”

Victoria traffic-division Sgt. Glen Shields told the Times Colonist police are using different techniques to spot phone users, including standing on traffic medians dressed in plain clothes and posing as construction-zone flaggers.