{"id":33319,"date":"2019-04-10T17:22:03","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T21:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/?p=33319"},"modified":"2019-04-10T17:22:03","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T21:22:03","slug":"if-youre-wearing-earbuds-but-your-phone-is-dead-is-it-still-distracted-driving-b-c-court-says-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/canada\/if-youre-wearing-earbuds-but-your-phone-is-dead-is-it-still-distracted-driving-b-c-court-says-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"If you&#8217;re wearing earbuds but your phone is dead, is it still distracted driving? B.C. court says yes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>A Surrey, B.C., driver who was caught wearing in-ear headphones\u00a0has been found guilty of distracted driving, even though the earbuds\u00a0were\u00a0connected to a dead iPhone.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Henry Grzelak was coming home after a long day of work on Oct. 12, 2018, when police officers spotted him in the northbound lanes of 152 Street, according to a provincial court judgment.<\/p>\n<p>His iPhone was in the centre cubby hole on his dashboard, with the earbuds\u00a0plugged in. The battery was\u00a0dead.<\/p>\n<p>The phone wasn&#8217;t in his hands or his lap, it wasn&#8217;t transmitting music or a video, and he wasn&#8217;t using it to talk to someone or navigate. Nonetheless, Judicial Justice Brent Adair found that Grzelak was legally &#8220;using&#8221; the phone.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In my view, by plugging the earbud wire into the iPhone, the defendant had enlarged the device, such that it included not only the iPhone (proper) but also attached speaker or earbuds,&#8221; Adair wrote in\u00a0Monday&#8217;s judgment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since the earbuds were part of the electronic device and since the earbuds were in the defendant&#8217;s ears, it necessarily follows that the defendant was holding the device (or part of the device) in a position in which it could be used, i.e. his ears.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to the B.C. RCMP&#8217;s traffic services, it&#8217;s OK to drive with one earbud in, but wearing two can result in a $368 fine.<\/p>\n<p>On the question of the battery, Adair said he relied on a 2015 precedent set in provincial court, which says that holding an electronic device in a position where it could be used constitutes an offence, even if it&#8217;s temporarily not working.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"credits-overlay\" data-target=\".wp-image-33320\"><a href=\"\" target=\"_blank\">DR<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Surrey, B.C., driver who was caught wearing in-ear headphones\u00a0has been found guilty of distracted driving, even though the earbuds\u00a0were\u00a0connected to a dead iPhone. Patrick Henry Grzelak was coming home &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":33320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3539],"tags":[4007,4024,6555,5042,6554,5554,6551,6552,6553],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/One-earbud-is-OK-for-drivers-but-two-can-result-in-a-fine.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}