Distracted
Driving – (Again) January
28, 2013
Yesterday
I read in the paper that a new survey by the AAA Foundation for Safety shows
that although most drivers admit that using a cell phone while driving is
dangerous, more than two-thirds say that they have done so recently. This disconnect between what we should do and
our actions in actual practice is something that I can understand.
For
many of us, myself included, since childhood the ringing phone was an urgent
call to action. There was no thought of
letting it ring or any indifference to who might be calling or what they might
be calling about. The ringing phone was
no less compelling than as if it was a call for help from someone caught in a
burning building, or from someone in mortal danger during a robbery, which it
might have been for all we knew (and this was, of course, before 911). Letting a caller dangle on the other end of
the line while the phone continued to ring was unthinkable, the height of
discourtesy and incivility. We were duty
bound to run, not walk, to pick up the receiver.
So
now enter the mobile telephone which nearly everyone carries on his or her
person at all times with rare exception, including, of course, while operating
a motor vehicle. When the darn thing
starts ringing, with whatever exotic ring tone we may have selected, the
ingrained reaction, at least for people with my upbringing, is to tap or swipe,
depending on the model of phone, to put it to the ear and to answer with a
polite, “Hello?”.
We
are well aware that driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous and that
many serious, even fatal, accidents are caused by distracted driving, but
failing to answer the call takes a grim determination and self-discipline that
is no easy task to manage. The longer
the phone rings the more and more guilt gets piled on. Maybe our failure to answer is an affront to
a good friend, or perhaps it is Aunt Gertrude calling to inform us of the death
of Uncle Charlie. We might be missing
the call we have been hoping for on some great business deal. Or it might be a call for help from someone
caught in a burning building.
Hopefully
we will, in time, be able to train ourselves to resist the temptation to answer
the phone while driving, but I have no doubt that it will take a major
effort. I have even observed men who
answer the siren call of the cell phone in the middle of a round of golf!
Don
Lowry
