Cellphone laws pose problems

One wishes the Saskatoon Police Service and the Highway Traffic Board the best of luck in their quest for tougher penalties against those who repeatedly get caught using their cellphones or texting while driving.

But even if SGI and the government go along with the request, which could see repeat offenders have their vehicles seized, experience in Saskatchewan and beyond would seem to indicate enhancing penalties still won’t stem the growth of this dangerous practice.

This trend is taking place across Canada and North America in spite of ever more jurisdictions passing laws either prohibiting the use of cellphones or texting devices or in some cases going after all distracted driving, including eating or adjusting the GPS while driving. Regardless of where the laws are enacted, they seem to have little effect.

This difficulty in getting people to comply has been known for more than a decade. In fact, in 2003 the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration prepared a report indicating that in 2002 at least 1,000 Americans died because they talked on cellphones while driving. The same study found that the use of hands-free cellphone devices did little to prevent the deaths.

Yet U.S. politicians immediately buried the report for fear of angering voters, who were already hooked on the use of the technology and not likely to set it aside, law or not.

That isn’t unlike what happened in Saskatchewan when, as recently as 2009, politicians and SGI officials confirmed to The StarPhoenix editorial board there was no appetite for cellphone restrictions in this province.

It was only after the technology became ubiquitous and the accidents they caused became a staple of the news that politicians agreed to take action.

Automakers have tried to address the issue by developing better hands-free and voice-recognition technology, but even this new technology has been identified as part of the problem.

In spite of the call for more tools for enforcement by Saskatoon police and the Highway Traffic Board, SGI continues to see problems with the request. As Kwei Quaye, SGI’s assistant vice-president of traffic safety services, told The StarPhoenix this week, the province tends to be very careful when it comes to seizing vehicles for traffic violations, including using cellphones.

It is only done in “exceptional circumstances where there is a danger posed to public safety,” he said. Texting clearly poses a danger to the public, but considering the rate at which it is done, it might be difficult to prove it presents an exceptional danger.

In fact, one Canadian judge recently ruled that a driver who, while stopped at a red light, reached down and picked a cellphone off the floor didn’t deserve the ticket she received. It would be even more difficult to justify seizing the vehicles of drivers who may have simply been using the cellphone to check the time — also illegal, but whether it is worth the same penalty as someone checking the email or updating their Facebook account is questionable.

This appears to be a problem that will ultimately have to be solved by the route it was produced. Cellphone and car manufacturers will have to eventually develop technology to make it impossible for people to hurt themselves when it is being used.

GM recently announced its intention to invest $1 billion in research and development at its Oshawa plant. Perhaps governments should put in requests that the research include developing technology making it impossible for a driver to either text or use cellphones while the car is in motion. 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.