Distracted driving, where’s the stigma?
I’m generally not a fan of stigma. Neither are the countless organizations working as I write this to break down various stigmas in our society: the stigma of living with mental illness; the stigma of breastfeeding in public; the stigma of not breastfeeding at all; the stigma of halitosis; the stigma of thinking Beyoncé is just OK. Whenever we hear about stigma, the goal is usually to do away with it.
But sometimes stigma is a good thing. For example, our nation is a far better one on account of the following stigmas: the stigma of associating with white nationalists (see the downfall of one recent Toronto mayoral candidate); the stigma of clipping one’s toenails on public transportation; and the stigma of driving drunk.
Now if only we could add to that list the stigma of distracted driving. Unfortunately though, no such stigma exists around the practice, even though it is currently the chief cause of car accidents in Ontario.
It’s arguably more taboo for a new mom to breastfeed her baby on a park bench than it is for her to text a friend from behind the wheel. You will get dirtier looks clipping your nails on the bus than you will checking your Instagram while operating a motor vehicle.
This makes absolutely no sense because while the former activity is really gross, the latter may actually kill you — or someone else.
Toronto Mayor John Tory knows this well, which is why he said the following in the press on Tuesday: “Distracted driving continues to be a major contributor to deaths and injuries and collisions, including in particular, those involving pedestrians and cyclists, and it must become a thing of the past.”
Like him or not, he’s right. Like the provincial government or not, it too was right to enact more stringent punishments for Ontario drivers caught in the act of distracted driving — whether they are reading a book behind the wheel, texting a friend, or fiddling with their GPS (I’m looking at you Uber drivers).
New provincial legislation implemented this year will saddle first-time offenders of distracted driving with fines of $1,000 and three demerit points. (The previous penalty was a minimum fine of $490 and three demerit points.)
This is a very good thing because the sooner we take distracted driving seriously as a potentially lethal habit, as opposed to an ordinary one, the sooner it will be stigmatized.
The irony about those hands-free smartphone holsters — often used for GPS and talking on the phone unencumbered — is that though they are supposed to make us safer, they sometimes put drivers and passengers in danger. Anecdotally speaking, when I interviewed several Toronto Uber drivers a few years ago, many told me they lived outside the urban core and were new to driving in the city.
As a result, some appeared glued to the GPS on their dashboards to a point (in my opinion) where they might as well have been holding a smartphone in their hands.
Last year, a 28-year-old Torontonian was killed in a collision after his Uber driver pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the Gardiner in order to pick up his smartphone (which he was using for GPS) because it had fallen off the dashboard. When the driver merged back into traffic, the car was struck.
Of course it’s unfair to pin the distracted driving problem on Uber drivers who understandably flock to high traffic areas where fares are in larger supply. Nor are Uber drivers the only people who stare too long at their GPS on the road. My own wife and my friends do this all the time. When I call them out on it, they tend to roll their eyes. I don’t drive, which probably makes my protestations all the more annoying. But hopefully a $1,000 fine scares them where I can’t.
The fine for putting people’s lives in grave danger should be enormous. So should the stigma.