Mobile Phone Use - An Epidemic!

We constantly hear about the road toll and its rise and fall as it suits bureaucracies agendas. But as I ride and drive I am absolutely gobsmacked that more people aren't killed. Honestly, if there are less deaths on our roads, it is not attributed one iota to peoples' change of attitude behind the wheel. It can only be that more modern cars and safety systems have worked.

We have had, over the past years, increasing legislation for learner drivers supposedly making it harder to get a licence, joining more dots and jumping through more hoops. But what happens after they get their licence, why does their driving seem to immediately go to shit? Well put simply, they are not taught to drive, they are merely taught to pass a test.

But as many of the faults become more evident, none has become more prevalent than mobile phone use whilst driving. As a friend put it one day, it has become so ingrained as part of driving culture. Mobile phone usage, as a cyclist, is my greatest of fears whilst riding. I can put up with the dicks that love to buzz you, even the odd wanker that thinks it appropriate to turn left in front of you. You become accustomed to these. No you don't like them, but ride wary with an expectation.

But with phone use, you don't know its coming. They are driving from behind you, totally oblivious that you are there. You don't see them, you can't prepare, you can't take evasive action, you are blind. Or they pass beside you, and erratically drift toward you with no warning. Its just not cricket.

None of the awareness campaigns or shock tactics seem to be working. People have become, in a sense, above the law in their own minds. That combined with ten foot tall and bullet proof, and it'll never happen to me mentalities, it is purely a recipe for disaster.

This distraction is a killer. When I was a truck driver I use to laugh, in a kind of facetious way, at the amount of women who would be doing their hair or make up at lights, or the business man reading his paper whilst stuck in traffic. Were they any better, no. But our modern technology has surpassed this, it goes beyond the lights, its a constant. Highways, city street, back roads, motorists lives have been consumed by this small parcel of technologically addictive euphoria.

As my friend has said, it has certainly become so ingrained into driving culture. I read that in Western Australia motorists are calling for police to lay back on the aggressive mobile stance. While we're at it, lets get a little more laid back on drink and drug driving as well. Because when you consider it, there is not a lot of difference.

For some people, it should be ok to use you phone, to make an emergency call from behind the wheel. But when you're stopped at traffic lights or in traffic, you're stopped right? It should be ok.

But it is illegal to use your phone when in control of a vehicle. Sitting stationary at a set of lights, or in traffic you are still in control of a vehicle. To use a phone legally, one must pull over, park, have the handbrake on and car switched off. Yes, police would probably show a little discretion if you were parked on the side of the road, even with the engine running. But lights and traffic are not like this at all. When the traffic moves, or the lights change whilst a driver is engrossed in their little box of technology, it is easy for a driver to make a rash decision, a late pedestrian crossing, a kid on a bike, the car in front having to stop in an emergency, emergency service vehicles...the list is rather long really.

I think there are two main factors to this epidemic. An over reliance on traffic cameras, and the lack of police patrol on the rounds. Now I don't blame police for this, its Governments to blame. A speed camera won't catch a person on their phone. A speed camera only catches one speeding that doesn't see the camera. Most fixed cameras are a waste of time, people know their whereabouts and slow down for the camera, then speed up again.

But its phone use I'm on about not speeding. If issues are un-policed, they become "ok", second nature. Let's face it, its only illegal if you get caught, isn't it?

What's my purpose behind this blog? Nothing really, I just felt like a rant, but an important one. Its high time that phone use from behind the wheel is likened to drink and drug driving. It gives the same attitude behind the wheel, the lack of concentration and reflexes are the same, or probably even less, and it is the same total disregard for safety and respect that alcohol and drugs are.

We need to do more, we need to change our culture, we need commonsense and respect back behind the wheel again. Or has our ferocious greed for the automobile overridden any of this? That's it I think, our self entitled, brain dead reliance on the motor vehicle has a lot to answer for.

Cheers, and as always safe riding.