New driving law bans motorists from eating breakfast sandwiches in Nova Scotia

After a spike in fender benders during morning rush hour, Nova Scotia is passing legislation that will ban drivers from eating breakfast sandwiches while operating a motor vehicle. The sandwiches have become a popular breakfast alternative because of their relative low cost and availability. Almost every restaurant open in the morning serves a delicious breakfast sandwich. But are they too delicious?


"You may as well be chewing on a gun," says Officer Bruce O'Reiley of the Halifax Regional Police, "All that melted cheese and sausage or bacon? It's game over for concentration."

O'Reiley heads Brake for Breakfast, a program that educates people on the dangers of driving while eating a breakfast sandwich. "People think that because you can't send a text on a southwestern omelette wrapped in a tortilla that it's somehow safe to eat while driving a Subaru wagon." O'Reiley continues, "I have some pretty gruesome case files that beg to differ."

Part of the problem is that you need at least one hand with which to eat - which takes one hand from the wheel. But the big danger may be how delicious a breakfast sandwich is. As O'Reiley puts it, "As soon as you're done swallowing one warm mouthful of salty meat, egg and cheese, you immediately want another. Your mouth waters as you plunge the flavourful disc into your mouth and then ... BANG, you've T-boned a hearse and there's a body on the freeway. That actually happened."

For everyone in the workforce who is short on time in the morning, O'Reiley has this advice: "If you have to eat in the car, fine, just make it something that won't distract you like dry toast or one of those awful green smoothies."

Nova Scotia is currently mulling over a comprehensive list of items that should be banned from touching drivers' hands. The list including make-up, electric razors, dogs, cigarettes, radio dials and even the hand of the person in the passenger seat.