A Society Driven to Distraction
Photo: Department of Census
I’m not always sure whether all the progress we’ve seen since our generation reached adulthood is for better … or for worse … but there’s one thing that has surely gone from one to the other: the way we use cell phones.
It was about four years ago that I got a call that a good friend had been killed while riding his Harley on a two-lane road in Maryland. He had been hit head-on by a pickup truck that had swerved into his lane. He died instantly.
According to witnesses, the driver of the truck – a young woman – was dialing her cell phone and not paying attention.
Since then, this sort of story has been repeated over and over and over … thousands of times … in the U.S. Just recently in southern California, an evening commuter train crashed head-on into a freight train, killing many people. One of the first suspects: the commuter train’s engineer, who investigators believe had actually been “texting” on his cell phone, and might have missed a warning signal alongside the tracks.
I wonder whether we, as a society, will ever connect the dots between cell phone usage in vehicles, and the rapidly escalating rate of traffic crashes and other terrible accidents.
Some states ban using a cell phone in a moving vehicle unless it’s with a hands-free earpiece. But, enforcement is spotty. I returned from visiting my daughter in New York a few weeks ago on one of those low-priced buses, Vamoose Bus, and the driver, who told me he was a former cop, used his cell phone regularly while driving through New Jersey, a state where such use is banned unless used with a hands-free device. The bus driver did not use hands-free. Each time he tried to dial with one hand while driving with the other, the bus swerved. Damn, I thought, and there are no seat belts in the bus.
I know some guys with one of those infamous Washington lobbying firms who brag that they killed an effort in Virginia to ban the use of cell phones in moving vehicles unless used with a hands-free device, especially on the densely traveled I-95 corridor. I thought they had no ethics.
Cell phone use in moving vehicles is banned in Washington, D.C., but not enforced. Everyone knows the cops are the biggest violators because they see them holding cell phones and yacking away while driving so, friends say, why should anyone else abide by the law?
According to the online site, Cellular-News, cell phone use while operating a vehicle is banned and enforced in most other countries around the world. But, in the U.S. … well, just watch out for that pickup truck headed straight at you in your lane …
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Filed Under: Baby Boomers • David Henderson • Featured Story
I’ve almost been hit several times on crosswalks, one by a woman who didn’t see me even though I stopped short and was yelling at her. In fact, I doubt she knows I was there in the crosswalk to this day, because she completely ignored me and continued talking.
The problem with using cell phones is not hands but concentration. It distracts people so they have much slower response times. The ban needs to be complete. Driving on crowded roads requires all the attention we can muster.