As I make this comment I would ask that you head over to the RAC Blog and check out THIS ARTICLE and then carefully read the article and its comments and then just to refresh your mind read the bill again and see if you agree with me….
There was one comment which seems to agree with some comments I have heard on the repeaters recently and that is basically that they can’t tell us what do do with our radios as the radio act is a federal law….
Well… Partially right…. The problem is that our radios (federal law) are in a motor vehicle ( provincal authority) driving on roads in Ontario (again provincal authority).
So the way I see it is that they can’t tell me how to operate my radio, or even when to operate my radio but I do believe they do have the authority to tell me not to operate my radio when driving a motor vehicle on their roads…. or to be more specific roads under their jurisdiction…
They already tell us to wear seatbelts, not to smoke when children are in the car and not to smoke in commercal vehicles…. Telling us no cell phone use or radio use (unless hands free) is not going be a big change from them telling us everything else.
Remember this was not picking on us… They made a general decision that covers, CB, Amateur and Private Commercal Radios… No special treatment ourside of giving the manufacturers time to get some hands free devices out for us…
I do not especially like the restrictions and we did our best to get exempted and that did not go exactly as planned… Saying that they don’t have any authority over us in a provincal/federal debate will not work well in our behalf when we lobby for more time for the exemptions or to have the exemptions made permanant…
73bob
Tags: amateur radio, Amateur Radio Mobile Operations, Bill 118, Driving while distracted
October 14, 2009 at 11:03 pm |
[...] VA3QV’s Weblog My view on the world of AMATEUR RADIO- "Rambling on" so to speak « Oh yes they can……. [...]
October 16, 2009 at 5:00 pm |
The way I look at it is that they’re not telling us we can’t operate our mobiles while driving. They’re telling us we can’t drive will operating our mobiles. Subtle, but important difference.
October 16, 2009 at 6:15 pm |
Good point Gordon…
They are not restricting the mobile use of any handheld device including Amateur Radio Equipment. They are restricting what the person operating the motor vehicle (commonly known as the driver) can do with his drivers license.
I doubt any passengers will be charged under this law…
73bob