The number of distracted driving charges given out during March's Traffic Safety Spotlight in Saskatchewan was an all-time high.
 
In March there were 711 offences, with 583 coming from cellphone use. It's a number SGI's Tyler McMurchy says keeps climbing.
 
"That is the high number we have ever seen in a single month in the history of these traffic safety spotlights that we have been doing for close to four years now," he said.
 
"The previous record was set in November 2017 with 636, so it's a significant jump from that."
 
With the added focus by police on catching distracted drivers during these spotlights, it may not be a good barometer for whether there's an increase in people using phones while driving.
 
McMurchy said they look at collisions, injuries, and fatalities the stem from distracted driving, and those numbers increased over three years up to 2016, but 2017's numbers aren't in yet. McMurchy added that there was an overall decrease in fatalities from 2016 to 2017.
 
Police in the province used a number of methods to crack down on distracted drivers, including having a plain-clothes officer at a busy intersection looking in cars, putting an officer on a city bus, or having someone on an overpass over a busy road.
 
Drivers distracted by eating, playing with the radio, or otherwise can also be charged. During March, 127 of the charges came from things other than cellphone use.
 
SGI says distracted is the leading cause of collisions in the province, and the second-leading cause of fatal collisions after impaired driving. 
 
In 2016 distracted driving played a role in 8,300 collisions, including 42 deaths and 1,200 injuries.