‘Using mobile while driving same as attempted murder’
USING a mobile phone while driving is no different from attempted suicide or murder. Those were the words of social services expert Barış Başel who commented this week on the underlying reasons for people fiddling with their phones while driving.
Speaking to Cyprus Today’s sister newspaper Kıbrıs as part of “Traffic Week”, Mr Başel said that there is “no road safety culture in our country”.
Talking on the phone in traffic, speeding and similar activities mean that a person is “attempting suicide and murder” while driving.
“Drivers should give all their attention to the road and road safety while driving,” he said.
“The use of phones can cause a distraction due to the presence of various stimuli and images on the phones.
“Social media addiction can be a problem if . . . drivers have to stop to check their phone because they are curious as to ‘who shared what’.”
Mr Başel explained that the underlying cause for using phones while driving, speeding and of road accidents in the TRNC is the fact that the “control culture” is more powerful than the “road safety culture”. He said that the police are seen as a “threat” and that people “only try to obey the rules to avoid police checks”.
He gave the example of motorists who flash their headlights to oncoming traffic to warn them of a police radar control check up ahead while those who do not obey the rules can cause major accidents.
Crash barriers on main roads are only put up “after protests due to accidents” he noted. “They don’t learn unless something has occurred. . . People who do not obey the rules, who use a phone while driving, and who speed, cause collisions not accidents.
“Usually infrastructure conditions such as problems with the road, intersections and sharp bends come to mind, but we need to remember that during accidents it is people who are operating the vehicles.”
Individuals who have grown up “loved have self-esteem and self-confidence and try to be more careful by following the rules because in the future when stepping on the gas, they will think about the people who love them and are concerned for them” Mr Başel stated.
Slogans created to prevent careless and dangerous driving should include “images of love” in order for them to be effective, he added.
“Slogans like ‘Don’t Become a Traffic Monster’ are not effective enough,” he said. “Nobody gets behind the wheel to become a monster. Slogans such as ‘Let Your Last Stop Be Your Home’ should be used for road safety because they contain the image of love.”
Police traffic chief Şevket Derindağ said that using a mobile phone while driving is one of the main causes of accidents on the roads of North Cyprus.
He explained that increasingly more messages are sent on mobile phones than actually talking on them and that with the decrease in outdoor social activities during the pandemic, people’s dependence on the internet, Facebook and mobile phones at home has increased.