ISOLDE D. AMANTE:
Republic Act (RA) 10913, or the new Anti-Distracted Driving Act, has a long list of things one shouldn’t do while driving, including using calculators while you’re behind the wheel. The law imposes large penalties on drivers who use gadgets like cellphones, laptops, tablets and videogame consoles, among others. Amante examines how RA 10913, which lapsed into last last July 21, 2016, might affect motorists and their habits on the road.
Say goodbye to using calculators while you’re behind the wheel. When the new law against distracted driving took effect last Thursday, May 18, that particular practice joined a long list of things one shouldn’t do while driving.
Why would anyone use a calculator while driving? Your guess is as good as mine. But the new Anti-Distracted Driving Act, which lapsed into law last July 21, 2016, imposes large penalties on drivers who use phones, two-way radios, laptops, tablets, videogame consoles, pagers, and calculators while driving or while waiting for a stop light to change.
That means no more reading, writing or sending a text while driving; no more making or receiving phone calls, except when it’s hands-free; no more playing games or watching movies; no more surfing the internet; no more reading e-books while on the road. And no more calculations, except in one’s head. Republic Act 10913 does not mention dashboard cameras, so we’ll have to wait until the next road rage incident gets caught on a dash cam to find out whether or not those devices are considered distracting and, as such, illegal.
Ah, the times we live in. We carry around devices that place the connected world’s answers at our fingertips, but are presumed to be so ill-informed and feckless that the Government feels compelled to tell us not to use our phones while we’re driving. Lawmakers, aware perhaps that most laws go ignored unless stiff fines await violators, attached penalties ranging from P5,000 to P20,000.
The new law allows drivers to use mobile phones for emergency calls to the police, fire department or a hospital. Non-emergency calls can be made only—(Look, Ma, no hands!)—if the phone is used hands-free.
Yet even that may be a bad idea, if you ask the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2011, the WHO pointed out in a report that even when we use our phones in hands-free mode, the mere act of using a phone means we’re no longer able to monitor dashboard instruments or the road as carefully as we should. More data are needed, but “studies suggest that drivers using a mobile phone are approximately four times more likely to be involved in a crash,” the WHO said in the same report. Every year, road accidents end 1.3 million lives and cause injuries for some 50 million more persons worldwide.
In the Philippines, the number of road accidents has shot up from 7,063 in 2011 (19 a day, on the average) to 9,179 in 2013 (an average of 25 a day). No information was provided on how many of these cases involved a driver using a mobile phone.
Of course, phones aren’t the only sources of distraction while driving. Eye-catching advertisements, especially on electronic billboards, can pose a risk. So can secondary tasks like chatting with one’s passengers, eating, drinking, fiddling with the radio or putting on makeup. (Those countdown clocks beside Mandaue City’s traffic lights have helped keep my eyebrows relatively even. If it says the green light is 50 seconds away, that means I can pencil in one eyebrow; over 100, and I get to do both.)
As long as our roads grow more crowded and the traffic progressively worse, the risk of distraction rises. We often feel the need to distract ourselves or to daydream, because staying in the present moment—when you’re sweating like a philanderer on the verge of getting caught by an armed spouse, and facing a road full of weary drivers, commuters, and those pestilential counter-flowing motorcycle drivers—tests our patience so. You could easily calculate the time that traffic robs you of every day. Just be sure to pull over before you tap on the calculator app on your phone.