A man in Quebec was cited with a $120 ticket along with four demerit points for using his Apple Watch while driving.
Jeffrey Macesin, who was asked to pull over by Quebec authorities for using the wearable device, said that he was in shock because he did not think that he was in violation of any law.
Macesin thought that he could look at his Apple Watch while behind the wheel, as long as he was not tapping on the iPhone that the wearable device was paired with.
"I have it in the bag charging while the auxiliary cable is plugged in to the radio and this controls my phone to play the music. So I was changing songs with my hand on the steering wheel," Macesin said to CTV News Montreal.
Macesin added that he was driving along with a police car behind his vehicle. The police car then turned its lights on, and the man thought that the authorities just wanted him to move out of the police car's path.
Surprisingly to him, the police made Macesin pull over. He was then issued a ticket under a section of the Quebec Highway Safety Code which states that drivers are not allowed to use hand-held devices which have a telephone function.
Macesin is contesting that he was not using his smartphone, and that the Apple Watch is not a hand-held device and is simply a watch on his wrist.
Avi Levy, a lawyer that specializes in cases where traffic violations are involved, knew that it was just a matter of time before such a case happens, adding that the incident will surely not be the last.
Levy claims that the wording found in the safety code places smartwatches in a not-so-ideal position.
According to Levy, he is unconvinced that the Apple Watch should be treated as a mobile phone. He states that the wearable device is a Bluetooth-enabled gadget that pairs up through a telephone signal with the user's smartphone. This is an important definition because, according to Quebec laws, Bluetooth devices are allowed to be used while driving.
There have been several troubles experienced by wearable device users that have been reported in the past, including a California woman that was cited due to using the Google Glass while driving and another Google Glass user being taken out of a movie theater because he was thought to be recording the film.
Another incident, again involving the Google Glass, had one user attacked in a bar in San Francisco because people thought that she was recording them using the device.
