When are Melbourne drivers going to grow up?
asks The Sunday Age yesterday. Last week that paper conducted two observational surveys
: photographing and counting 65 inattentive drivers over a total of two and a half hours.
Highlighted for attention was
one woman driving along Toorak Road eating with a fork in one hand and a container in the other and presumably steering with her knees.
If caught, police say she would have been booked for failing to have proper control of her vehicle — or even careless driving, which would have seen her in court on summons.
And quite bloody right—that's an appalling way to behave.
But it gets worse:
Victoria's top traffic cop, Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby, wasn't surprised to hear of this…
"We've found people watching DVD movies while at the wheel," said Mr Ashby. "People do strange things in their cars. They feel invincible and invisible. They don't believe they'll be caught and they don't believe they'll be in an accident."
Watching a movie? What-the-hell? That shows a peculiar level of disconnection from the responsibilities of controlling a motor vehicle, an action that should render the offender ineligible to hold a license. Come on, we need to get serious here: that's not just incidental distraction, that's deliberate negligence with potentially fatal consequences. And so is having lunch at the wheel.
Mr Ashby said driver distraction was becoming as much an issue for traffic police as speeding and drink-driving. "We now run operations in the city and around Melbourne targeting this sort of behaviour, particularly related to the use of mobile phones."…
Police figures revealed to The Sunday Age show that 35,536 Victorians were last year booked for the offence, receiving three demerit points on their driver's licence and a $141 fine. This compares to 17,994 offenders pulled over in 2001…
"People are tending to flout the laws in increasing numbers. Every police region (across the state) has experienced an increase in detecting offenders," said Acting Inspector Steve Perry, of the Victoria Police traffic support division. "Legislators have seen fit to apply relatively high penalties for the offence, but driver's aren't getting the message."
OK, let's start taking licenses away: I'm damn sure that will get the message across.
He said an argument could be made that the distracting effects of talking on a phone produced an impairment on driver ability similar to low-level drink-driving. He pointed to research from the Monash University Research Accident Centre that suggests that drivers engaged on the phone are "significantly impaired" in their ability to judge gaps in traffic, make decisions, maintain speed and throttle control, and maintain lateral control of their vehicle (reliably stay in their lanes).
As Harry Barber says: The mobile phone user is the new drink driver
. (See? I said I'd borrow that.)
The editorial in the same paper continues the theme:
When will we start taking this seriously? We hear constantly about the trauma of road crashes, not only on those immediately involved, but on those around them.
Still many of us seem to kid ourselves that crashes won't happen to us, that we're excellent drivers, that we can cope with any sudden change in the traffic. Sadly, we have constant, terrible evidence that this is not true, and lives are ruined as a result. It is hard to believe people need to be contactable on the mobile while they're driving — or that the call can't wait until they pull over safely and talk while the car is stationary.
Well I, for one, don't find it particularly hard to believe that some people can be so arrogant, selfish and stupid.
Right across society there's a significant disconnect between driver distraction being seen as a "minor" traffic infringement and the awful consequences that may follow from such bad driving practice.
I don't think it's entirely down to the legal system, but the police and the judiciary have their part to play.
Comments
People will grow up when the police start actually enforcing the law, and when judges start doing their job and actually enforcing the supposedly "relatively high" penalties (which are still way too lenient to be effective) rather than trying to act like pseudo-social workers. It's won't happen a second before.