Toronto cops dress up as roadside panhandlers to catch drivers with their hands on their phones

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• How is this not considered entrapment?

• put me down for "later today"

• not a fan.

  I never ever text while driving because it is so obviously incredibly dangerous, but sometimes while I'm sitting at a long light, particularly if someone is begging for money outside my window and making me super uncomfortable, I will look at my phone to see if I have any messages, or to change the playlist I'm listening to.

  This is the sort of thing these guys are going to see. Completely stopped people at red lights looking at their phone for a few seconds. Not people driving around texting. They're catching the wrong people with this tactic.

  That's my opinion anyway.

• SO a fan.

  I can't tell you how many times I was sitting at a GREEN light because the moron ahead of me was texting instead of paying attention. Or times I was almost run over as a pedestrian by morons on their phone instead of watching the road. Or the time I was hit from behind because the moron took that moment to read a text instead of noticing that I had stopped at a red light. Yep.

  They should do this in every city. Or at least mine. I hope they catch every last one of them. Morons.

• I understand the temptation, but sorry, even stopped at a red light, you are in a running vehicle in a roadway shared by other vehicles. You have the responsibility to stay alert to what's happening around your vehicle. (And we somehow managed to avoid panhandlers before smartphones, too.)

  Worst case scenario: they bust only people who read at red lights only, but I think it's more likely that a fair chunk of people getting nabbed are those who were using the phone before they halted at the light.

• They've been doing this in Ottawa since last summer.

• being stopped at a green for a few seconds because the driver was distracted during a red light (and really, this doesn't have to be a cell phone, it could be a lot of other things) and having to honk your horn to alert them sounds very dangerous. Good thing the cops are out there catching this sort of behaviour before someone dies.

  People running over pedestrians are driving not stopped. Same with someone who hits you from behind.

• You know if someone offered money not to get a ticket they'll take it and when is it against the law to use your phone when stopped