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Half measure

February 02, 2010 17:02

It's day one of the newly enforced ban on using hand-held devices while driving in Ontario and already the difference can be seen on the roads... can't it?

No, of course not. If you're like us, you saw just as many drivers distractedly talking on their cell phones on the way down the highway to work Monday morning as you ever have.

Granted, perhaps a few of them were being a little more discreet than usual, but the communication was still taking place.

There absolutely has been a huge increase in the use of Bluetooth devices since the new law was annouced. Two years ago the guy walking around the mall with that little Star Trek device stuck in his ear, was marked as a self-important ass, but now it's hard to tell the self-important asses apart from the rest of the crowd just trying to abide by the law.

The oddity is that just a few days before the law came into effect, a study was released that showed no marked decline in the accident rate.

The U.S. study by the Highway Loss Data Institute reviewed insurance claims in New York, Connecticut and California. It also compared the data to other areas that do not have cell phone bans.

Even though the laws were shown to have reduced hand-held phone use while driving, and studies have purportedly shown that using hand-held phones while driving significantly increases the risk of a crash, in the areas where bans were put in place there was no significant reduction in crashes following said bans.

Experts suspect the reason is that drivers are resorting to using hands-free devices. The accident rate for those is the same as hand-held. Yes, you read correctly, studies show it's just as dangerous to talk on a hands-free device while driving as it is a hand-held device.

That's why many are criticizing the province for the new Ontario law. It didn't go far enough, they said. If the government really wants to save lives, a sure fire way would have been a total ban on all cell use while driving.

This halfway measure only encourages people to try and get away with it, making them even more dangerous as they try to hide their activity while placing a call or texting.

Our society got along quite fine, thank you, before we had the ability to communicate with the outside world every second of every day some would even argue better than we are today.

It's only a matter of time before a complete ban is brought in, something that should have been done from day one.

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