Tech fix needed to curb texting
Sadly, many Saskatchewan drivers will be able to identify with Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart’s decision to check an incoming text message while he was driving home from the office.
Mr. Stewart received a $280 ticket Monday after he was caught texting and driving. Although he promises he will never do that again — and one hopes he will be true to his word — the temptation to break that oath will be great. Texting and wireless connectivity have become central to our lifestyle, and that doesn’t go away after one gets behind the wheel.
Studies conducted in North America over several years have indicated that this connectivity dependence is taking a toll in the form of increased carnage on our highways. Drivers who have been distracted by reading or sending texts, dictating to voice recognition programs or talking on their cellphones have died and killed in numbers as great as those who get behind the wheel drunk.
Efforts by governments to curb these behaviours, and increased advertising about the hazards of using wireless devices while driving have had little impact. The reaction of governments so far to this policy failure has been to make prohibition laws harsher and the punishments more costly.
Kwei Quaye, SGI’s assistant vice-president of traffic safety services, and Regina Const. Curtis Warnar, who has been handing out tickets for texting, both say the stiffer fines and tougher enforcement have had little effect in Saskatchewan. That is to be expected.
As Mr. Quaye told the Leader-Post, drivers still don’t believe that they will be caught. And as Const. Warnar found when he nabbed one driver entering a mall parking lot, even being caught wasn’t enough to convince the driver to wait until he stopped before using his phone again. In fact, he continued with his call even after being pulled over.
As any commuter on busy roads during rush hour can attest, such conduct is far from rare.
However, rather than work to stem this problem, vehicle manufacturers and wireless companies have been developing voice-to-text software, Bluetooth connectivity and handsfree devices that are likely to increase the use of wireless devices by drivers. Research shows such hands-free communication devices are as dangerous as hand-held ones.
The only advantage the hands-free provide is to make it more difficult for police to enforce their use.
Over the last number of years, governments across North America have increasingly gone after tobacco companies for continuing to market and sell products they knew to be addictive and deadly. Lawsuits have yielded awards in the billions of dollars.
Wireless and car manufacturers should take heed. Rather than developing technology that encourages the use of wireless devices in order to sell their products, they should work on technology that makes their abuse by drivers more difficult while allowing use by others in the vehicle, or requiring a driver to be parked before using a communication device.
Failure to do so will carry a cost — in more carnage, and likely in legal liabilities. The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper’s editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.