Cell phones have become a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. There are pros and cons to this, as with most things. Lament it all you want, but it isn’t just teenagers who seem to be perpetually glued to their pocket-sized screens these days.
But with the rise in use of cellphones comes the rise in use of cellphones while doing things that demand our full attention, like driving.
It’s on a near daily basis that I will see someone driving down one of the streets in town, surreptitiously (or so they think) sneaking a quick peek down at what I can only assume is their phone.
We all know this is a bad idea. We also know this is illegal and dangerous, yet I see heads both young and old watching their lap as they drive about town, never mind those who sit for a few noticeable seconds at an intersection after the light turns green.
In Ontario, distracted driving is a crime, and it is illegal to use your phone in any capacity while driving, including while stopped in traffic or at a red light. Penalties for distracted driving include up to six demerit points, fines up to $2,000, a jail term of six months and a licence suspension of up to two years. For drivers with a learners permit, the suspensions are significant.
You may be late to a meeting, or class. You might hate the song Spotify shuffled to. You might think, as you wait behind a line of cars trying to turn across Scott St. traffic at 5 p.m. on a weekday, that you have a few minutes to scroll through your newsfeed.
We don’t. None of us do. A car travelling at 50 km/h will cover nearly 14m in a second, too long a distance for a distracted driver. Data from Ontario in 2013 showed that one person is injured in a distracted-driving collision every 30 minutes, and a driver on their phone is four times more likely to crash than one focusing on the road. In the intervening seven years, I imagine those statistics have gotten more dire, not less.
We all have a tendency to do things we know are wrong when we also know we will get away with them. Our local police do good work, but they cannot be everywhere watching all of us all the time to catch and punish those who aren’t committed to paying attention behind the wheel.
We should all make an effort to put our phones away while we’re driving. The few minutes without checking for new messages will go by much faster than the time that will follow hurting someone while driving distracted.
–Ken Kellar
