No April Fools

On April 1st, 2008, a couple of significant pieces of legislation came into effect in Nova Scotia, no foolin’. Firstly, Nova Scotia became the first jurisdiction in the country to ban smoking in vehicles when children are present. More specifically, by Chapter 54 of S.N.S. 2007 amending S.N.S. 2002, c.12

1. Section 5 of Chapter 12 of the Acts of 2002, the Smoke-free Places Act, as amended by Chapter 59 of the Acts of 2005, is further amended by adding immediately after subsection (2) the following subsection:
(2A) No person shall smoke in a motor vehicle when any person under the age of nineteen years is present in the vehicle regardless of whether any window, sunroof, cartop, door or other feature of the vehicle is open.

Nova Scotia also joined Newfoundland and Labrador in banning hand held cellphones while driving a vehicle, by S.N.S. 2007, c. 45 amending R.S.N.S. 1989, c.293

7 Chapter 293 is further amended by adding immediately after Section 100C the following Section:
100D (1) It is an offence for a person to use a hand-held cellular telephone or engage in text messaging on any communications device while operating a vehicle on a highway.

The immediate effect of the second piece of legislation, is that driving down the street in Nova Scotia this week, one has to be aware of people pulling over the side of the road and putting on their four-way flashers in order to answer their phones; which is a hazard as well. Now if only someone would get to work on banning cell phones in restaurants….

BTW, hands-free phones are still legal to use in motor-vehicles