An RCMP distracted driving initiative saw nine people receive tickets for driving while using a cellphone in approximately five hours on Wednesday.

Steinbach RCMP Staff Sergeant Harold Laninga says the initiative is not about tickets, but prevention and promoting awareness; changing behaviours to make the streets safer for everyone. Laninga notes talking and texting on cellphones is only one form of distracted driving and "it's called distracted driving for a reason, right, you're primary focus is not on what it should be. There's no doubt that the use of cellphones - texting and talking - is a dangerous practice and can lend itself to dangerous behaviour and also, obviously, to accidents."

Corporal Terry Sundell talking to a distracted driver Wednesday afternoon. (Photo credit: RCMP Manitoba)Laninga notes the officers conducting the initiative are from D-Division in Winnipeg and came to help the Steinbach detachment. He adds the officers from Winnipeg were in Steinbach last week and handed out over 20 tickets in about five hours. Laninga says it would make him happy to see that number, reduced to nine tickets in five hours on Wednesday, be reduced to zero.

Laninga says he occasionally receives phone calls from concerned citizens who see RCMP officers driving while on the phone. He says under the Highway Traffic Act, it says officers are allowed to use their cellphones while driving.

"That's a concern to the public and I can understand that," he notes. "I think it's just the nature of our job that occasionally we do have to talk to people. Sometimes we're on the way to a call and we're reassuring the people or we're giving them that direct contact with the police officer, so they know they're safe."

He adds, he hopes the public can appreciate the nature of an RCMP officer's job and see they need that communication with people.

In the initial five hours on Wednesday not only were there nine tickets handed out for driving while using a cellphone, but here was also one speeding ticket, and two tickets for not wearing a seatbelt.