Talking about immigrants, mobile phones and Valley Girls

NET RESULTS:As well as replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger, California voters could back a ban on all mobile phone use in cars, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

SIXTEEN THOUSAND Americans. That’s how many have died in a six-year period due to crashes caused by drivers sending text messages while behind the wheel.

It’s a shocking, staggering number – a population about the size of Clonmel dead simply because someone felt they really needed to send a quip or comment or question to someone as they drove. Imagine losing a family member or friend to such an asinine cause.

There has been a 28 per cent rise in fatalities due to mobile phone use generally in cars between 2005 and 2008, from 4,572 to 5,870, while mobiles are implicated in 1.4 million accidents annually (more than a quarter of all crashes).

Alarm about those numbers has led California to consider advocating a complete ban on mobile phone use in cars.

California is one of only eight US states that, as in Ireland, has banned the use of mobiles for calls in cars except when drivers use a hands-free set.

Evidence, however, indicates that people are still significantly distracted when taking or making calls at the wheel, even when hands-free.

The US National Safety Council therefore favours a full ban and a California state automotive safety group is likely to recommend the same.

Texting on the move is the biggest concern.

A US Transportation Department study recently showed that texting drivers took their eyes off the road for nearly five out of every six seconds while they text. On the motorways in Ireland, a driver could travel more than 100m in five seconds – without looking at the road at all, if texting.

On the other hand, one of the big insurance lobby organisations, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, argues that, overall, distracted driving deaths are down and a ban on mobile phones would make little difference to the totals.

A full ban in this car-focused state is likely to be controversial. For every person who hates seeing mobile users gabbing in their cars, another is a multi-tasker who feels they can get a lot of work cleared by making calls while driving.

Perhaps the issue will nudge its way into the pre-election diatribes which are in full swing in California as voting day approaches in early November.

It is a big election year here, with a tight gubernatorial and Senate race in the offing, both with major Silicon Valley interest. (Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger automatically steps down, having completed the maximum two terms.)

Very high-profile Valley women are contesting the seats for governor and US Senate in the state: eBay founder and former chief executive Meg Whitman is up against former California governor (and recent Oakland city mayor) Jerry Brown, while former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina is making a run for Senate Democrat Barbara Boxer’s job.

The Valley Girls are running as Republicans and both have the advantage of considerable wealth to fund their campaigns. In Whitman’s case, she has set a record for the amount of personal money pumped into a political race, having left even billionaire New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent $109 million in his last campaign, in the dust.

Whitman has topped that with $119 million of her own fortune for this election, with more than a month still to go.

Her opponent, meanwhile, the famously frugal Brown, whose father was also a past state governor, had spent almost nothing until recently, only about half a million dollars. Now the real spending and invective has begun in both campaigns in this largely Democrat-leaning state.

New polls show that voters are not sure they want former technology chief executives, however.

Last weekend the Los Angeles Times put Brown ahead of Whitman, 49 to 44 per cent, and Boxer ahead of Fiorina, 51 to 43 per cent. Meanwhile, a Field poll from a few days earlier put Brown and Whitman neck and neck. Pundits say it may be the Latinos who swing the election for the Democrats, based on the same immigration reform issue that has exercised the Irish lobby in the States. Like the Irish, Latinos want a deal for illegal immigrants; Latinos make up a significant fifth of California’s voting-registered population.

Even though Whitman and Fiorina may be moderates on immigration reform, many Republicans are not, and are proponents of a fences and armed border patrol policy for states that border Mexico.

That seems to make many Latinos wary of giving Republicans any more leeway in the state or the US Senate, and at present they are definitely favouring Boxer and Brown.

Much can change in the final weeks leading up to an election. For now, though, it looks like Ireland may be saying thank you to Mexico and its US immigrants if California Latinos and their November votes regalvanise the push for the national immigration reform that would, in turn, benefit the Irish.

A globalised world, indeed.