You never have to look far to find a driver distracted behind the wheel, especially one on the phone or texting.

Law enforcement across the province will be stepping up their patrols as February is Distracted Driving Awareness month.

Constable Ruben Geleynse with Lacombe Police says a lot of the time it's fairly noticeable.

“intersections, stop lights, things like that where people are coming to a stop anyway and then they think I’ll just take this time to quickly fire this off or whatever and then they end up not realizing that the light turns green and then it becomes pretty obvious.  But, you know you still see people driving while they are actually travelling down the road, they’re not looking at the road, and they are actively texting”.

Distracted driving contributes to 20-30% of collisions in Alberta, and you are 8 times more likely to get into a crash when texting and 4 times more likely to be involved in a collision when talking on your phone, even if you're using a hands free device.

Geleynse says keep in mind those are crashes where they were able to prove a driver was engaged in an activity that diverted their attention from the road.

“Unless we actually see it happen ourselves, we really rely on either honesty of people involved or witness testimony.  If you have a witness or multiple witnesses that are giving consistent testimony, yes we saw this person on their phone and they slammed into the back of this vehicle or whatever and then we can lay a charge based off witness testimony”.

While cell phone use is a big one, distracted driving legislation prohibits a number of other behaviours like personal grooming, reading, and playing musical instruments, and it also allows officers to use discretion to determine if an activity has distracted your attention from the road according to Geleynse.

“So for example, pets in the vehicle.  You are allowed to have a pet in the vehicle, a dog for example, but if that dog causes you to become distracted, so it’s sitting on your lap while you are driving, you know obstructs your view, starts licking your face, anything like that, you can be charged with distracted driving”.

The Lacombe Police Constable admits, they are often questioned about their use of cellphones and computers while behind the wheel on patrol.

“It’s an inevitable part of the job, you do need to be on the computer while driving, you are running plates, we have information for calls that is being dropped down to computers and time is of the essence in this job”.

He says they undergo extensive driver training to help equip them to multi-task behind the wheel, specifically in high stress situations.

While a $287 fine is fairly stiff to the average Joe, Geleynse says maybe the fine for distracted driving is not high enough because they still see people behind the wheel distracted every day, especially when you consider people’s lives are at stake.

A distracted driving charge also includes 3 demerits.