Taking lives in your hands

REARVIEW:FIGURES REVEALED in a recent Road Safety Authority (RSA) survey of mobile phone use by drivers are depressing.

Despite the practice being banned since 2006, a substantial coterie of motorists are still taking their lives – and those of other road users – in their hands.

The study reported that about 5 per cent of drivers nationally were observed using a hand-held mobile phone. This figure rose as high as 16 per cent in some areas. The RSA said the results actually underestimated of the extent of the problem because they do not include those who may have been texting or using hands-free kits.

The RSA argues hands-free kits are no safer than hand-held phones and texting while driving is more hazardous still. Taking your eye off the road for a second can have lethal consequences.

In the US, the problem has reached epidemic levels. Some 1.4 million crashes per year across the country are being attributed to the use of mobiles by drivers.

Fatalities are soaring. So shocking are the statistics that serious consideration is being given by authorities in California to imposing a blanket ban on mobile phone use in cars.

Should we be thinking along the same lines? The answer, for practical reasons, is no. Such a measure would be unenforceable. Are gardaí expected to stop every driver singing along to the radio or talking to themselves on suspicion they are using a hands-free kit?

In Ireland, more than 90,000 drivers have received penalty points for using mobiles since the law was changed.

The message is obviously still not getting through. Sadly, the conclusion – defeatist though it may seem – is that until all motorists take personal responsibility for their actions, society is going to have to accept road deaths are a fact of life that no amount of legislation can alter.