Cell phones, speed, injury and death

            The writer Aldous Huxley said “Speed is the only truly 20^th century pleasure.”  Before the last 100 years, almost nobody traveled faster than a galloping horse.  Since the advent of the automobile, we’ve been driving dangerously.  We listen to music, converse, eat, put on makeup, read maps, smoke, and do plenty more while driving.  That’s only the stuff we’re allowed to do.  Heck, we even try to do 2 or 3 of these things at the same time.

            Since cell phones have become immensely popular, we can add them to the list of driving distractions.

            Technology is progressing so quickly that we find ourselves with more and more distractions in the car.  It’s not just listening to music and the radio anymore, but talking on cell phones and browsing the Internet on our blackberries while kids are watching movies in the back seat.

             Ontario recently announced that it is considering a ban on the use of cell phones and other technological devices while driving.  Newfoundland and Labrador was the first province to introduce the ban, and Quebec and Nova Scotia have now joined the club.  Manitoba is contemplating the idea.  Credit for the Newfoundland ban belongs to the Coalition Against No-Fault, which lobbied for the ban starting in 2002.

             With all this debate about the dangers of cell phone use in the car, some Canadians are withdrawing support from the idea of a ban.  Is all this talk about cell phones as distractions an overreaction?  We’ve done just fine dealing with the other distractions mentioned above.  Cell phones can’t be that more dangerous, can they?

             Ontario reached the lowest recorded level of traffic fatality and injury rates for the third time in a row in 2005, and last month the Globe and Mail argued in an editorial that the law should not ban cell phone use in motor vehicles because drivers would ignore the ban.  The fact is cell phones are a grave distraction, which the pivotal study published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared to drunk driving as a safety issue.  This is worth quoting (p. 456):

 

We found that using a cellular telephone was associated with a risk of having a motor vehicle collision that was about four times as high as that among the same drivers when they were not using their cellular telephones.  This relative risk is similar to the hazard associated with driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit.

 

            Look in any graveyard.  Chances are, anyone under age 30 died of injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident.  Are we so self-centered that we can’t accept a cell phone ban on drivers?  Enjoy the pleasure of speed, but not while talking on your cell.  Premier Williams, who recently voluntarily paid a fine when he was reported for cell use while driving, would agree.

For related articles see:
http://miramichileader.canadaeast.com/news/article/470649 and http://www.citizen.on.ca/news/2008/1106/editorial/015.html