A motorist heading to the March\u00e9 Central power mall was recently found not guilty by Montreal Municipal Court Judge Denis Gallant of exercising a function of his cellphone while at the wheel of his vehicle on Nov. 16, 2024.<\/p>\n
The City of Montreal pointed out that a Constable Gagnon, stationed at Cr\u00e9mazie and L’Acadie and watching for illegal cellphone use by drivers, clearly saw driver Pierre Tessier holding his cellphone and looking at it while on the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tessier countered that he was stuck in a major traffic jam in the area because of construction work and was basically stopped. The driver added that all he was doing was connecting his cellphone to his vehicle’s console “to activate the CarPlay system and use the GPS.” The motorist pointed out that the exit leading to March\u00e9 Central was blocked and he needed GPS to find an alternative route.<\/p>\n
The motorist added that his vehicle, a 2021 Mercedes, “required a physical cable connection to use CarPlay, unlike newer models that allow for a wireless connection” and that the connection process “required the use of both hands.” Basically, the defendant said he was not using the cellphone, but “performing a technical operation for navigation.”<\/p>\n
Tessier provided the court with photographs taken after the traffic stop showing the heavy traffic as well as his vehicle’s entertainment system, and a record to prove he was not speaking on the phone at the time of the stop. The judge found Tessier’s testimony to be “honest and reliable, and supported by convincing documentary and photographic evidence.”<\/p>\n
The judge ultimately found that Tessier did not violate the Highway Code in relation to cellphone use while driving. Judge Gallant pointed out that while part of the law “provides that a driver holding a device is presumed to be using it,” this can be rebutted. The judge pointed to a case saying that not every brief hand contact with a phone “necessarily constitutes an illegal use, particularly when the purpose is to avoid future distractions.”<\/p>\n
The judge said the main question is whether it is prohibited for a driver to plug a wire from a cellphone to a navigation program while stuck in standstill traffic.<\/p>\n
“In this case, the defendant acted with a specific purpose \u2014 to make his driving safer by transferring his navigation to the vehicle’s integrated screen via CarPlay,” the judge ruled. “This action falls within the spirit of the exceptions provided for in the Highway Safety Code, which allows the use of an integrated screen for navigation… The vehicle was stopped in a traffic jam due to construction work and the defendant did not use any communication functions.”<\/p>\n
Judge Gallant found that Tessier “successfully raised a reasonable doubt by demonstrating that his brief interaction did not constitute the distracting use targeted by the law.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A motorist heading to the March\u00e9 Central power mall was recently found not guilty by Montreal Municipal Court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37410,37409,10360,19151,37407,37412,23248,37413,31635,3952,7778,3406,37411,37406,50,36173,37414,37408,19152,638,25016,8002,37415,37405,8409,252,2176,18172,5699],"class_list":["post-104279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-acquittal","tag-carplay","tag-court","tag-court-system-of-canada","tag-defendant","tag-distraction","tag-driving","tag-information","tag-judge","tag-justice","tag-land-transport","tag-law","tag-mobile-device","tag-mobile-phone","tag-montreal","tag-motor-vehicle","tag-navigation","tag-photograph","tag-public-law","tag-road","tag-road-safety","tag-safety","tag-superior-court","tag-telephone","tag-testimony","tag-traffic","tag-transport","tag-vehicle","tag-vehicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}