Despite warnings and laws banning texting and driving, many people still engage in the dangerous behaviour.
Now a coroner is recommending that people caught texting while driving should have their cell phones confiscated on the spot.
Coroner Michel Ferland examined the deaths of Vincent Lamoureux and Hugo Pereira, who died in February 2010 when their car plunged into the Riviere des Prairies.
The aspiring firefighters had been at a bar on St. Denis St. and had left to go home to Laval.
Ferland said cell phone records indicate Pereira was exchanging text messages with a woman he had met at the bar, and was going to return to pick her up.
The driver, presumed to be Pereira, lost control while he was about to cross the Viau Bridge, and slammed into a cement block while leaving the road.
It was a week before their car was discovered and their bodies retrieved.
Ferland said the chance of getting into a crash is much higher if the driver is using a text phone since the driver's eyes are not on the road.
It's common sense advice that very often is not followed by people who fail to realize a car can travel the length of a football field in a few seconds.
57, 000 Quebecers were ticketed for texting and driving in 2011.
That's why Ferland is recommending police be given the power to seize cellphones on the spot if a driver is caught using one -- and then hold onto the phone for 30 days.
The report comes soon after the SAAQ launched a new advertising campaign against texting and driving. The commercials show drivers weaving across the road while not paying attention to their driving, with one driver getting an airbag in the face as the result of a crash.
