Some time ago, the Government passed legislation to ban the use of cellphones whilst driving. Although there is a groundswell of support for any initiative by Government to stem the number of road traffic accidents on our roadways, simple observation shows that a large percentage of the driving public continues to willfully violate the law. Undeniably, the use of cellular phones has skyrocketed in recent years, with more than 1.6 million cellphones currently in use in T&T. The increase in cellphone users has been accompanied by an increase in the number of individuals concurrently driving and talking on the cellphone. It is acknowledged that cellphones have become a valuable tool in conducting business. Among other things, they help boost productivity, by keeping employers and employees connected to the office and to clients.
However, research has shown that drivers who use cellphones, even hands-free models, are four times more likely to crash, injuring or killing themselves and/or other people, simply because they are much less aware of what is happening on the road around them. They tend to react more slowly to unexpected situations on the roadway, are more likely to enter unsafe gaps in traffic and generally feel more stressed and frustrated.
Mental distraction
Interestingly, there is also a substantial body of research which illustrates that using a hands-free phone whilst driving does not significantly reduce the risks, because the problems are caused mainly by the mental distraction and divided attention of the driver taking part in a phone conversation at the same time as he or she is driving. There is little point in having both hands connected to the steering wheel if the brain is not connected to the hands. Some researchers have concluded that the interference associated with cellphone use is due more to attention factors rather than peripheral factors, such as holding the phone. A number of studies has shown that there are no reliable safety advantages for those drivers who use hands-free phones from those who use hand-held phones. It is the conversation which distracts you, and you get sucked more and more into the conversation and you pay less and less attention to the road.
There are good lessons to be learned from other countries, which have introduced legislation, in particular, Great Britain, which has banned the use of hand-held phones. There the debate rages on as to whether there should have been an absolute ban, including hands-free phones. What of the driver talking to a passenger? It is argued that talking on any kind of phone while driving is very different from talking to a passenger. The passenger is aware of the pressures on the driver at any given moment and can adapt and modulate his conversation, and sometimes even give the alerts to the driver about the traffic; not so from the remote person on the other end of the cellphone who simply keeps on talking or even asking questions while an accident is either about to happen or is in progress.
Amending legislation
The UK government has also found that drivers continue to openly flout the law, and they have had to make amendments to their legislation, to increase the fines as a means of ensuring compliance. Drivers are notoriously over-optimistic about their driving ability and a lot of then still do not think using a hand-held cellphone whilst driving is risky. It is the chamber's view that a nationwide education programme must accompany the legislation; it must be aimed at changing behaviour, and therein lies the challenge. It is important to raise drivers' consciousness about the dangers of distraction and the effect cellphone conversations have on driving performance and traffic safety. It would be interesting to see statistics on how often cellphone uses were involved in vehicular accidents over the past few years.
To date, regrettably, we have had too many accidents and urgent action is required on all fronts to take all possible remedial steps to stem this tide. Cellphones may be convenient and productive, but there's one place they seem to do more harm than good-and that's behind the steering wheel.