Deleterious Distractions
I say do it! As long as there's a highly representative number of drivers unwilling to intelligently govern their activities leading to distraction while under the influence of a vehicle, enact appropriate legislation to ensure they adhere to the law.
Which is, after all, designed for public protection. Never mind the Nanny State; there are times, and this most certainly is one sterling example, when peoples' self-absorption and lack of social responsibility equates with deliberately placing other people in danger because of their lack of interest in safety.
People want to speed? Fine them, heavily; give them hefty driving demerit points, and if all else fails, suspend licenses. Driving while under the influence? Now a true societal sore point given the number of casualties arising out of accidents caused by selfish drivers who believe they're in control despite imbibing alcohol, and the numbers of deaths they've cause.
And the relatively slight sentences handed out by 'understanding' judges simply serve to convince these hammered drivers that it's a common, acceptable behaviour; to hoist a few and drive off into the sunset. If we're really serious about reducing road deaths, stiffer sentences for vehicular homicide has to come through the court system. Hammer them, take away their vehicles, give them substantial jail time.
No kidding. I really mean it. If people think it's their prerogative to drive heedlessly, impaired by alcohol and by excessive speed, make them pay the consequences well before their self-obsessed actions render them a charge on society by injuring themselves and others. And while we're at it, enact legislation to ban the use of cell phones in vehicles. For the use of the vehicle driver, in any event.
People read the statistics, they hear about the incidence of accidents caused by distractions like cell phone use; they're aware that by their use they're potentially imperilling someone's life, apart from their own. And they just don't seem to care. It's that old syndrome, that it'll happen to someone else, but not me. No one is willing to surrender their personal authority, their 'right' to behave as they wish.
But no one has the right to assume they're capable of reacting intelligently and proactively when their attention is taken elsewhere than on the intricacies of negotiating traffic-filled highways, despite the contention that driving is such an automatic, mechanical act and reactions are so reliable that they could never be the cause of harm to themselves and others.
Reality demonstrates otherwise. So it's time. Enough jurisdictions have determined the dangers on the road are enhanced when people are distracted by paying less attention to the matter at hand, and more to the cellphones in their hands. And even devices that can be used remotely don't get a clean bill of health; the mind wanders away from attention to the road even if the hands are engaged in those mechanical reactions.
Why is it that I cringe when I receive a telephone call from someone who is clearly using a cell phone while driving? Why isn't the driver of the vehicle who thinks nothing of telephoning me while driving aware and even remotely apprehensive that he/she may be endangering self and others? There is no singular entitlement to do as one wishes while operating a motor vehicle. Safety is of first concern, and undivided attention to driving is critical to arriving safely.
Newfoundland and Labrador passed a law banning drivers from using handheld cellphones while driving, back in 2003, the first in Canada. In Nova Scotia, doctors and police are actively pressing the government there to pass a similar law. Now the government of Quebec is instituting the same law, in tandem with a photo radar pilot project to arrest speeding on the province's highways.
In 2006 there was a total of 50,443 accidents in Quebec, 717 of which resulted in death. The carnage on the roadways of the nation can be handily reduced with some additional common sense legislation, in needed recognition that many people will not, of their own volition, stop their dangerous public behaviour behind the wheel of a tonne of steel.
Past time all provinces in Canada undertook to seriously take remedial action. Including Ontario, lagging lamentably behind.
Which is, after all, designed for public protection. Never mind the Nanny State; there are times, and this most certainly is one sterling example, when peoples' self-absorption and lack of social responsibility equates with deliberately placing other people in danger because of their lack of interest in safety.
People want to speed? Fine them, heavily; give them hefty driving demerit points, and if all else fails, suspend licenses. Driving while under the influence? Now a true societal sore point given the number of casualties arising out of accidents caused by selfish drivers who believe they're in control despite imbibing alcohol, and the numbers of deaths they've cause.
And the relatively slight sentences handed out by 'understanding' judges simply serve to convince these hammered drivers that it's a common, acceptable behaviour; to hoist a few and drive off into the sunset. If we're really serious about reducing road deaths, stiffer sentences for vehicular homicide has to come through the court system. Hammer them, take away their vehicles, give them substantial jail time.
No kidding. I really mean it. If people think it's their prerogative to drive heedlessly, impaired by alcohol and by excessive speed, make them pay the consequences well before their self-obsessed actions render them a charge on society by injuring themselves and others. And while we're at it, enact legislation to ban the use of cell phones in vehicles. For the use of the vehicle driver, in any event.
People read the statistics, they hear about the incidence of accidents caused by distractions like cell phone use; they're aware that by their use they're potentially imperilling someone's life, apart from their own. And they just don't seem to care. It's that old syndrome, that it'll happen to someone else, but not me. No one is willing to surrender their personal authority, their 'right' to behave as they wish.
But no one has the right to assume they're capable of reacting intelligently and proactively when their attention is taken elsewhere than on the intricacies of negotiating traffic-filled highways, despite the contention that driving is such an automatic, mechanical act and reactions are so reliable that they could never be the cause of harm to themselves and others.
Reality demonstrates otherwise. So it's time. Enough jurisdictions have determined the dangers on the road are enhanced when people are distracted by paying less attention to the matter at hand, and more to the cellphones in their hands. And even devices that can be used remotely don't get a clean bill of health; the mind wanders away from attention to the road even if the hands are engaged in those mechanical reactions.
Why is it that I cringe when I receive a telephone call from someone who is clearly using a cell phone while driving? Why isn't the driver of the vehicle who thinks nothing of telephoning me while driving aware and even remotely apprehensive that he/she may be endangering self and others? There is no singular entitlement to do as one wishes while operating a motor vehicle. Safety is of first concern, and undivided attention to driving is critical to arriving safely.
Newfoundland and Labrador passed a law banning drivers from using handheld cellphones while driving, back in 2003, the first in Canada. In Nova Scotia, doctors and police are actively pressing the government there to pass a similar law. Now the government of Quebec is instituting the same law, in tandem with a photo radar pilot project to arrest speeding on the province's highways.
In 2006 there was a total of 50,443 accidents in Quebec, 717 of which resulted in death. The carnage on the roadways of the nation can be handily reduced with some additional common sense legislation, in needed recognition that many people will not, of their own volition, stop their dangerous public behaviour behind the wheel of a tonne of steel.
Past time all provinces in Canada undertook to seriously take remedial action. Including Ontario, lagging lamentably behind.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Society
posted by Pieface | 5:01 PM
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