Share the responsibility and put the phone down
Whether walking or driving, watch where you’re going, writes Lorraine Sommerfeld.
The Ontario government recently proposed increased fines and crackdowns ahead of the legalization of marijuana next year. A few days later, it announced coming plans — the second time in two years — to further crack down on drivers using hand-held devices. They want to suspend licences.
All good measures, but I also have a note to pedestrians: Get your eyes off your phone.
Just stop it. I can only bitch and complain about distracted drivers so many times before it finally becomes excruciatingly clear that you who are afoot share some blame in this dangerous dance.
You cross streets, both jaywalking and at intersections, with nary a glance at what might be bearing down on you. I know you are trusting your peripheral vision or your bat-quality hearing, but neither is that good and the fact is, you are far more absorbed in what’s happening in your hand than what’s going on around you on the road.
I’ve seen you trip, walk into other people, into poles and planters. We’re addicted to our phones. I’m not going to blame the youth of today, because quite honestly, the olds are just as bad. Study after study reveals we’re getting worse not better: the dopamine-pinging response we get from being in contact with an audience from whom we need constant affirmation is increasing every year.
I was driving on mountain roads in Italy last week, and after getting used to the fact that the things they call roads are narrower than my own driveway, I was also pleasantly surprised to see far fewer drivers in the region with a phone in their hand. In Canada, I can’t look into three cars without seeing a driver clutching a device, texting or blathering away, rules and fines be damned. It’s the “addictive” part of the equation; very few junkies will argue with the fact their drug of choice is damaging, but they won’t put it down, either.
With high stone walls or dramatic drop-offs acting as bumper guards, you have to pay attention in the part of the world I recently visited. Even driving tiny cars, there is scarcely room for two at many junctures. Take your eyes from the road for even half a second, and you’re doomed.
The curves are blind, the switchbacks folding back on themselves like paper clips. Take a second
to check into your Instagram account? You’d have to be nuts.
Unfortunately, those on foot featured the familiar hunched neck we see everywhere. The hills were alive with aggressive gangs of spandex-clad cyclists, tiny cars careening around bends that sport mirrors to point out blind spots — and people strolling along the shoulder-less road are checking their inboxes?
How anyone could knowingly elect to walk dangerous landscapes this way is beyond me. But with your head in your phone, you are walking blind.
The National Safety Council in the U.S. reported recently for the first time the alarming rise in cellphone-walking injuries and deaths — and not just on the roads. Over half of cellphone-walking incidents happen in the home and result in sprains and fractures, but when those incidents happen around cars the outcomes can be far worse.
Planners use the term “road user” for a reason: it’s not just about drivers. If cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians all want a seat at the table, they have to recognize that drivers are only part of the equation. They might be the most dangerous part, but everybody has a role to play in public safety.
When I’m behind the wheel, I’ll do my part, because death and injury doesn’t lessen just because you can assign blame and be off the hook. But for crying out loud, if you’re walking and crossing streets, pay attention to what’s going on around you.
Government is right to crack down on impaired drivers, regardless of whether that impairment is booze or dope or hand-held devices. But if we’re going to continue to use terms like “road user” and “road sharing,” that means everyone sharing that road has a role to play.
Your damned phone can wait. Driving.ca