A WAKE UP CALL
MOTORISTS caught on their phones should be treated like drink drivers and charged with a criminal offence, a former police officer says.
In a push to shake up road rules, retired Senior Constable Garry Church said motorists on phones should be disqualified from driving to send a clear message.
“That will allow them to wake up,” he said.
DRIVER distraction is the fastest growing killer on Queensland roads.
So why are a disturbing number of drivers using their phones while at the wheel?
Queensland road safety expert Professor Barry Watson said the answer was relatively simple: “People drive like they live.’’
“The whole issue around distracted driving is really this intrusion of people's general behaviour into the road safety setting,” said Prof Watson, from the Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety.
“The prevalence of smartphone use is just so great now, it's not a surprise that it flows into people’s driving where unfortunately it’s a major distraction.”
According to the Department of Transport and Main Roads and Queensland Police an alarming 76 per cent of road users freely admit to using their phone illegally.
In a Federal Government submission, TMR said distraction-related road deaths were the fastest growing category of the “fatal five” causes of fatal crashes.
From 2007 to 2017 distracted driving caused 341 fatalities, more than 10 per cent of all road deaths, in Queensland.
The real figure is likely higher.
Establishing if distraction is a cause in fatalities is difficult compared to alcohol, drugs and speed which can all be easily tested for.
Monash University’s Accident Research Centre estimates distraction causes about 16 per cent of fatal crashes in Australia.
Its research released last month, from the landmark Australian Naturalistic Driving Study, provided chilling insights.
It found drivers were distracted every 96 seconds by something other than the road in front of them and , just 5 per cent of drivers focused for the entire journey.
While phone use only accounted for 7 per cent of distraction, texting was found to increase crash risk by six times.
According to Prof Watson, the full implications of distracted driving are yet unknown. This is because phones are ever developing.
“In years gone by it was just phone calls or texting but now there's lots of other things people can do on their smartphone,” he said.
Particularly dangerous is the belief that using a phone while driving can be done safely. “People may try to do it in a way that reduces their risk. They might only look at it at a traffic light,” Prof Watson said. “What can then happen is their attention is grabbed by it and before they realise, they're looking at their screen for much longer.”
Known as cognitive tunnelling “it can take people by surprise”.
For Prof Watson, one answer to driver distraction is social disapproval.
“It's trying to establish the agenda that this behaviour is not acceptable or as common as people think,” he said.
RACQ head of technical and safety policy Steve Spalding is appalled by the behaviour he has seen on the road.
An avid motorcyclist, he won’t ride to work because of what he’s observed while travelling on a bus.
“Recently I saw someone driving a vehicle completely hands off – and it wasn't an autonomous vehicle. They were on the phone and they were reading,” he said.
“It may have been only 30km/h but here was an individual who didn't see the risk or perhaps selfishly thought what they had to do was more important.”
Mr Spalding said the answer was a big shift in attitude.
“The solution lies with people owning a social responsibility that this is about their safety and the safety of those that they probably live and work with,” he said. “Would you want to receive that phone call from the police where there's been some tragic outcome?”
I SAW SOMEONE DRIVING A VEHICLE COMPLETELY HANDS OFF. THEY WERE ON THE PHONE AND THEY WERE READING RACQ REP STEVE SPALDING