Banning driver distractions - Part II

In my previous post I favoured the banning cell phones and other driver distractions. Yesterday a National Post editorial came out against the new Ontario law. The Post thinks we should just be trusted to be responsible citizens. It would be nice if that were a realistic expectation - we could apply it to drinking and driving as well.

Today, Kelly McParland’s column in the Post, "Silencing the tools of stupidity" , is much more to my liking. The only quibble I might have with Mr. McParland's argument is that he doesn’t go quite far enough. He seems to suggest that "drinking coffee and eating jelly donuts or putting on lipstick while driving" shouldn’t or can’t also be banned. I don’t see why not. They all constitute "driving without due care and attention", they’re just as great a distraction and it’s no more difficult to enforce a ban than for cell phones.

If the Post editorial board wants to come out against laws that fly in the face of individual freedom and personal responsibility they ought to write an editorial that calls for the repeal of seatbelt and cycle helmet laws. These paternalistic laws only 'protect' people from themselves and they distract police from real safety issues. For example, in Victoria I regularly see cops harassing citizens by handing out seatbelt tickets. But I’ve NEVER, not once, seen them enforcing the law requiring drivers to stop at pedestrian crosswalks. Violations at crosswalks are frequent and result in many deaths and injuries each year. If that isn’t clear evidence of skewed priorities I don’t know what is.

Ban distractions in the driver’s seat

Ontario is set to ban cell phone use (and other distractions) by drivers. Normally I’m against government interference with private activities like, for example, wearing seatbelts and cycle helmets. It’s none of their damn business and such bans grease the slope.

But I make exceptions where other people’s activities may endanger my life and property. So I support banning the use of cell phones and other portable distractions (including wolfing down Big Macs and juggling hot coffee) by drivers whilst driving. Since so many people do these things banning them often meets with resistance. For example, a popular local radio host once opined (quoting from memory): "anyone who can’t handle a car while using a cell phone shouldn’t be on the road." Now there’s a certain logic to that and I tend to agree - any licensed driver should be capable of driving and phoning under most normal circumstances.

But there’s the problem. Under most normal, benign circumstances people get away with all sorts of behaviour. Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of the time careless driving habits don’t result in a crash. It’s that .001% that gets you. In a quickly evolving, hazardous situation a tiny difference in a driver’s attention and reaction time can make a huge difference. Within the last two months I experienced two such incidents. It was obviously a bad couple of months:

(1) driving home on a city street, nearing my turnoff I started signaling a left turn about a block ahead of the turn and a short time later started braking. There was an oncoming car so I had to wait - foot on the brake. Then I heard a horrible screeching of tires behind me and in my rear-view mirror was this big black pickup truck sliding towards me with his trailer whip-sawing side-to-side behind him. I thought that was it. All I could do was floor the gas pedal and try to avoid being rear-ended. Luckily, I did, but not by much. Now, that idiot truck driver had to have been distracted. My tail-lights and brake-lights were functioning (I checked later) and he had lots of time to see them so he’d have had no excuse. Perhaps he was on his cell-phone, I don’t know, but that kind of distraction would easily have been enough to explain his last-second panic braking and locked-wheel slide.

(2) on a city street again, the traffic light turned yellow and, as I often do, I proceeded through the intersection. A car in the intersection, in the on-coming turn lane, was signaling a left turn. I wasn’t quite half way through the intersection when the oncoming driver decided she had to beat the yellow light and, like a squirrel, turned right across my path. Only because I was fast enough to hit my brakes, tires screeching, did I avoid hitting her. All I can say is that if I’d been the slightest bit distracted, by anything, there’d have been a crash.

So go ahead, Ontario, ban the use of all those electronic do-dads in the driver’s seat. And I hope BC soon follows suit.

Update: Blue Like You has lots of commentary on this subject.