A Posteriori

It’s deeply disturbing to see so many drivers on the road demonstrating such crass and total lack of respect for road safety, pedestrians and even other drivers.

I’m not even going to get into the perils of drunk driving since I’m sure this subject has been rightfully blogged about ad nauseum.

For instance, as I was walking home tonight, I nearly got ran into by a driver backing up while sticking a cell phone in his ear. I shouted “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING” and subsequently turned around and gave him a vicious, icy glare. All he could do is smile awkwardly back at me and wave.

What seems to get very little press is the egregiously flippant behaviour of drivers who narrow-mindedly choose to drive while talking on a cell phone. It would be bad enough if they chose only to do this in the fluid traffic of an un-congested autoroute. Most unfortunately, they decide to take their lives, and the lives of those who surround them into their hands while navigating tight downtown streets, sometime as they’re turning corners or even (most shockingly) backing up.

Do these people understand that they’re attempting to control a potentially dangerous and highly fatal weapon that contains two tons of steel and hard plastic at average speed of anywhere between 50 and 150 km per hour? Has it occurred to them that they need to maintain as close to 100% concentration at all times? It’s reckless for any driver to believe otherwise irrespective of whichever driving situation that driver happens to find him/herself at the time.

The loss of control of this potential weapon occurs due to two factors:

1) The loss of vision on whichever side of their face they happen to stick their arm and their cell phone. A prudent driver must have full command of their vision at all times, observing all mirrors, sides, and blind spots, looking out for other cars, passengers, road signs, obstructions, and obstacles.
2) The loss of concentration on the road and all other elements surrounding them due to their concentration on the phone conversation in which they’re engaged. The other party to the conversation will always expect an instant response, unaware that the driver is (at the very least) supposed to be concentrating on the road.

While it’s true that the potential for #2 exists in any situation in which there are one or more passengers in the car, there are a couple of differences:

a) The passengers are aware that the driver is driving, and thus will be far more inclined to stop talking and distracting the driver in situations where they know the driver needs to concentrate on the road.
b) In today’s mostly single-driver commute, it’s probably more likely that the driver will be talking on a cell phone than carrying any passengers.

The solution to the above problem is actually pretty simple:

Anybody who speaks on a cell phone, whether by sticking a phone in their ear or via a handless speaker, should be punished just as severely as a driver found to be intoxicated.