Oakville Police Officer Frustrated By Bizarre Distracted Driving Incidents in Halton

Halton | Oakville | Ontario | Latest News |

Published April 9, 2019 at 7:23 pm

A lot of people try to text and drive, but how many people attempt to operate their vehicle while enjoying a bowl of pasta?
Constable Marc Taraso has been on a miss
A lot of people try to text and drive, but how many people attempt to operate their vehicle while enjoying a bowl of pasta?
Constable Marc Taraso has been on a mission to use all reasonable methods of enforcement to make sure to people know that distracted driving has no place on the roads of Oakville. One of these methods is using his Twitter account.

Taraso is Oakville’s local constable. He has completed five years in patrol, followed by five years in the Oakville Community Mobilization Bureau, and is now in his 11th year of policing. He is a member of the Oakville District Response Team (Traffic Enforcement) and HRPS Search Incident Response Team as the Search Manager.

He has also has over 6,000 followers on Twitter, which all have become a fan of  the constable due to his tweets that showcase people’s wrongdoings.

Cst. Taraso first started tweeting about active incidents, specific enforcement/road closures and community events on @HRPSoak. He then obtained permission to create his personal HRPS branded account in February 2016.

“I created the account with the goal of sharing a perspective of the day in the life of a police officer in Oakville,” says  the constable. “My goal was to convey to the public that Police Officers are human beings, and our role is to support our community.”

During his discretionary patrol time, he developed a passion for distracted driving enforcement. So, he decided to use his social media presence to highlight distracted driving enforcement efforts in order to reach a broader audience each time he issued a ticket, instead of only educating the involved driver.   

“These enforcement-related tweets generate a lot of engagement; my recent tweet about a driver watching a Maple Leafs game on his phone while driving generated over 110,000 impressions on Twitter.  A single ticket, but 110,000 people receiving the message that distracted driving has serious consequences,” says Cst. Taraso.

His goal is to use the service’s education and enforcement efforts to help reduce distracted driving on Oakville roads and ensure road safety is a shared responsibility. 

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