Hands-free legislation, which forbids the use of handheld electronic gadgets while driving, becomes official in Ontario and British Columbia today. This means that drivers caught not complying with the law can be given a ticket.

In both provinces, drivers have had a "warning" period whereby tickets were only being dolled out to really flagrant offenders. But today, Ontario and British Columbia join most other Canadian provinces that have already enacted hands-free legislation including, most recently, Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.)

In Ontario, fines can run anywhere from $60 up to $500. Those in BC will face some of the most stiff penalties: $167 and up to three demerit points if you're found texting or e-mailing. In that province, as well as in Saskatchewan, drivers under the Graduated Licensing Program are not permitted to use hands-free devices either: it's a no tolerance policy for these new road warriors.

The jury is still out on whether hands-free legislation is actually helping to deter distracted driving practices. "We've examined what has happened in other provinces," Martin Dupuis, spokesperson for Alberta Transportation told me back in November 2009, "and there doesn't seem to be a big difference in provinces that have enacted specific legislation targeting cell phones."

A U.S.-based study recently recently by the Highway Loss Data Institute claims that hands-free legislation has not resulted in a reduce number of traffic accidents. The reasons for this vary: drivers are ignoring the law altogether, chatting while driving isn't as major a cause of accidents as we believe, and/or it's the act of talking that really distracts a driver, not physically holding the device.

Newfoundland was the earliest to enact legislation in 2003, and Quebec and Nova Scotia followed in 2008. The next 12 months in provinces like Ontario, with the highest population in Canada, and in BC will help to determine just how effective prohibiting handheld devices will be.

A driver is caught texting while driving with his hands above the wheel in plain view Photo submitted by a Marketnews.ca reader.

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