The Age: Why do we still yak on the phone while driving?

Switching off mobiles in the car will stop drivers answering them, writes Michael Shmith. Driving, which was never meant to be easy, is a skill acquired by many, respected by some and abused by others. Some of the games bad drivers play, such as Red Light Roulette and Tailgate Lotto, remain time-honoured traditions of the road, while others, such as Full Tank and Beer And Skittles, have been outlawed by vigilance, punitive rewards and plain common sense.

One game, however, shows little sign of going away: let’s call it Mobile Monopoly. The equipment is rudimentary: one mobile phone, one car. The rules are simple: while driving, use right hand to place phone to ear to receive or make a call (alternately, crook phone between shoulder and upper jaw); pay scant attention to road and other drivers, use mirrors rarely, steer sporadically, ignore red lights, stop at green ones; all the while howling into a piece of plastic to announce at regular intervals that you’re in the car and will be home in ever decreasing minutes.

You see players of Mobile Monopoly all over the road as they meander along, caught between parallel universes of time and place and thoughtlessly and arrogantly breaking the law. If caught, the offender faces a $145 fine and three demerit points. The problem, as far as Victoria is concerned, is there is little indication that drivers have taken in the message this is (a) illegal and (b) dangerous.

Worse — the practice persists. According to a survey published in the current issue of The Medical Journal of Australia Victorian drivers yack on, despite a 1999 ban on talking on handheld mobiles and harsher fines imposed in 2005. Of the 20,027 drivers surveyed in October last year, 331 were observed using handheld mobiles. A previous survey, conducted in 2002, found 315 out of 17,023 drivers on the phone. This may appear relatively trivial: 16.5 out of every 1000 drivers, which is even a small improvement on 2002’s figure of 18.5 for every 1000 drivers. Why worry about it?

Everything is relative; so let’s stay on the road, but play with some details. Last year Victorian Police breath-tested 1.37 million drivers and riders of whom more than 5500 — or four out of every 1000 drivers — were over the limit. While zero is the only acceptable number in such circumstances, four drink drivers per 1000 is still more acceptable then, say, 16.5 illegal mobile users per 1000. But imagine the hullabaloo if the phone ratio applied to breath testing: of those 1.37 million drivers, more than 22,000 would be over-the-limit instead of 5500. If this is unacceptable, as it clearly would be in the eyes of authorities and the community at large, why isn’t it already unacceptable in the case of illegal use of mobiles in cars?

Central to the issue of using a hand-held mobile at the wheel is the increase it presents in the chance of accident due to distraction. In a word: unsafe. In another word: risky. The perils of distraction are considerable, and, as one of the authors of the survey, Suzanne McEvoy, writes in an accompanying editorial in the journal, a contributing factor in 14 per cent to 21 per cent of crashes in Australia.

A State Government survey into driver distraction, prepared by the Road Safety Committee last year, drew attention to what can happen when a driver is on the phone: impaired ability to determine correct lane position, speed, reaction time, traffic signals, distance from the car in front and awareness of other surroundings. Police tend to call all this erratic driving, but usually referring to suspected alcohol abuse. When is mobile abuse going to acquire the same social stigma as drink driving?

Australia is not alone in banning the use of hand-held mobiles while behind the wheel: at least 30 other countries do the same, partially or entirely. The odd one out, intriguingly enough, is the US, where, apart from some municipalities, using hand-held mobiles in vehicles is illegal only in three states and the District of Columbia and Greater Baghdad (a lie, but a good one).

Vigilance can work only so far. User prevention should start with the drivers themselves, and the inducement of the mindset of the lethal consequences of taking or receiving phone calls while in charge of a hunk of road machinery. The RSC survey mentions the THINK! campaign in Britain, which has seen an encouraging fall off since banning the use of hand-held mobiles in cars in 2003. “Switch off before you drive off” is the slogan.

Australia is good at catchphrases. We need a mobile equivalent of “Slip! Slop! Slap!”, which persuaded, rather than forced, millions to protect themselves against the sun. Similarly, the TAC tells us “If you drink and drive, you’re a bloody idiot”. What does that make you if you phone and drive?

Michael Shmith is a senior writer. He has a mobile phone, but never turns it on while driving.