The June edition of Consumers Report has a short article titled “Driving while Distracted.” Like most of the top Google hits involving the term “distracted driving,” the article exclusively focuses on cell phones. True, probably some of the most dramatic cases of distracted driving have involved cell phones, particularly texting. This has not only been a curse to safe driving, but has also emerged as a problem in bus and train accidents where professional operators are more involved in texting a girlfriend rather than focusing on the safety of their passengers.
But seriously, I think that the anal politics of suburbia is overreacting to cell phones, much in the same way that suburbia likes to prohibit chickens in back yards, Bible studies in living rooms and flag poles in the yard. I find it interesting that I have called 911 only twice in my life, both in the past six months using my government-issued cell phone while driving in a moving car. Once it may have saved the life of a young lady who was possibly being assaulted, and the other was calling about a drunk staggering across the highway. In both cases, it was simply the process of pushing the button on my speakerphone, with the only distraction being a brief second of finding the 911 buttons. I tossed the phone into the passenger seat and talked.
Common sense tells us that texting is not only unsafe, but a prime demonstration as to just how stupid human beings can get. But pressing a button to answer a phone call is a lot less distracting than fooling with the radio or the air conditioner. Ever tried to reprogram the clock in a moving vehicle? Ah, the second example of stupidity is the guy who designed the clock! In fact, if we are to ban cell phones, I would like to expand the list:
1) Require manufacturers install radios and clocks that can only be programmed while the car is in Park.
2) Remember how Dale Earnhardt died? Mandate that all mothers with screaming children be required to wear head restrainers so that they cannot turn to look at their children while the vehicle is in Drive.
3) Have all cars equipped with Yapper Switches, automatic voice detectors which can calibrate the rapidity of the conversation. Once it hits a given threshold, the car automatically decelerates. This will account for yappy teenagers, couples in a passionate argument or overgrown male children arguing if the Bears are better than the Packers. Lord forbid that a yappy dog be in the car!
4) Ban sexy porn billboards
5) Expand open container laws to include McDonald’s bags and sodas.
Maybe you get the point. I think the first thing that needs to be done is to bluntly tell talk-police that they don’t need to hijack part of our English language. “Distracted driving” is not another term for “talking on a cell phone.” So if you can’t statistically prove that talking to a speaker in a car is far more dangerous than talking to a passenger in the car, then please shut up!
The second point is to consider common sense. Truckers have used radios for decades. I recommend that one-handed operation of tractor-trailer units be prohibited from now on. Really? What about utility repairmen. I recommend that they be required to come to a full stop whenever they operate a radio. Same with taxi drivers. Maybe you get my point. By treating the cell phone as a bogyman overlooks the millions more who use communication devices in their cars. Oh — and let’s ban those silly DVD screens in mini-vans. Who needs the distraction of having to listen to Shrek while driving down the interstate?
The problem with cell phones is not talking, but it is the use of your hands and eyes. Pressing the button on a visor is not distracting, nor is having a conversation. I can’t imagine driving across the state of Montana remaining utterly speechless! At least we won’t have to be worried by visual distractions while driving through Kansas! There are a ton of people who are responsible users of cell phones and vehicles. I drove a bus for a few years transporting tourists. Guess what — I used a radio!! And it was far more distracting to operate than the speakerphone in my car.
There are issues regarding cell phones that need to be addressed, but literally “talking to yourself” is not one of them. Laws should focus on the real problem — texting. It can be argued that GPS devices in cars are far more distracting. Like texting, they are not designed for operation while driving, pure and simple. Yet we have now added integrated iPods, Blackberries and computers into our cars. The key to each of the devices is that they are not meant to operate while driving. Listen to music, answer a phone call or glance at your GPS screen. But don’t touch until the car is at a full stop. Yet if lawmakers are keen on prohibiting cell phones, they should go the whole nine yards and ban the use of iPods, iPhones, iPads, iCBs and iGPSs. They can all be distracting and all can be deadly.
Or better yet, drop the entire matter and simply make it against the law to take your eyes off the road. You know, come to think of it, it does not take a law to make it wrong to take your eyes of the road. The last time I was in an accident I was hit from the rear by a young man who was bending over to set upright a cup of soda. Should it be against the law to sip a soda in a car? Regardless, he felt bad about the accident, his father and his boss was really upset about it, but no one was hurt and the kid learned a lesson. And his insurance bill increased and it was recorded in his driving record.
Yet what if he hit a child riding a bike? That is where the law needs to come in because the taking of a life is not always answerable in civil law. In that case, it must be determined if a person was willfully negligent. Texting is considered a rather willful operation. It is intentional, not impulsive. Mothers reaching over to deal with children and people dealing with spilled sodas are reacting. Tapping onto the tiny keys of a cell phone is rather intentional and requires directed attention, but is answering a call with a speakerphone the same distraction?
Passing laws that prohibit cell phones outright is foolish. People talk. And the cars of the future are going to be interlaced with technology. If there is a to be a law passed on anything, it should be prohibiting intentional, directed use of a device that takes your eyes off the road that endangers the life of another. Talking is not in that category.
I agree that as usual, we are tending toward over reaction to a problem. It does make sense to promote no texting in a moving car, but we do need to be reasonable and consider how many other things distract while driving. One more law is not the answer!