You are driving along Highway 23 near Palmerston, and the car in front of you is slowing down to about 60 in the 80 zone despite clear roads, and weaving onto the shoulder and into the opposite lane from time to time. You hesitate to pass in case the car swerves at the wrong moment. You also consider pulling off the road and calling police about an impaired driver. As you get closer so you can see the licence plate, you notice the driver’s hand appears glued to her ear, and she seems to be having a heated argument with someone, despite being the car’s only occupant.
Cell phone.
When the new legislation prohibiting drivers from using hand-held communications devices came into effect in the fall, police started off with an education campaign, usually letting drivers off with a warning. At the beginning of February, the gloves came off and police started writing tickets.
Some of us have changed our ways and either turned off the phone while driving, or invested in a hands-free system. Some of us will have to learn the hard way. A ticket for $155 (or more) can be a powerful teaching tool. So can a car crash.
While there are still drivers (like the woman on Highway 23 last week) who are disregarding the law, most will eventually come around. It will be the same as when seat belt use became law – even the diehards who vowed never to use the things are now routinely buckling up.
But something has to be done about others who share our roadways, including pedestrians and cyclists. Police reported that at least one of the pedestrians killed recently in Toronto was talking on a cell phone at the time.
Most of us have watched a kid walking along the road, ear buds in, twitching away to the beat of his music, thumbs flying over the keypad of his cell phone, so oblivious to the rest of the world that he ricochets off a parking meter and mows down a little old lady. We may have done something similar ourselves – portable music is as much a part of jogging as running shoes. An upbeat tune may make that morning jog easier, but it takes away one of our key senses, hearing. Our eyes may tell us who and what is ahead of us, but it is our ears that warn us about hazards such as someone approaching quickly from behind. Police have been warning us for years that muggers just love to see a lone jogger wearing headphones.
The new law is a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step. We have to understand that any traffic law leaves a lot to our personal judgment. A speed limit is a maximum, for optimum conditions. We are expected to know enough to slow down in stormy weather to a safe speed.
While mobile electronic communications devices appear to be a fact of life in our society, do we really want to be sharing the road with some driver having a heated argument with his ex-wife, even if it is via a hands-free phone - or a group of pedestrians who have rendered themselves unable to hear a warning “beep”?
The new law states what should be obvious, that drivers need both hands on the wheel, and everyone on the road (and sidewalk) needs to be able to hear as well as see, and be paying attention – for their own safety as well as that of everyone else.
If we want to turn that baby step into a giant leap forward, we need to take out the ear buds and turn off the phone, whether we are driving, cycling, jogging or walking.