It was a performance worthy of a Guinness World Record. Barreling along Sydney Road Fairlight, the truck driver was texting on one mobile phone while speaking on another, steering the rig with his knees.
I hit the horn and indicated – in no uncertain terms – he should stop before he kills someone. Still clutching the phones he slowly and deliberately raised his middle finger.
If only he’d read the story of 21-year-old Sarah Page, a serial texter from New Zealand. “It’s fine Mum, I do it all the time!” she’d protest. Until she wrapped her car around a pole in 2009.
Sarah suffered massive brain injuries. Her family turned off her life support. The police returned her belongings including a mobile phone.
There was a message in the drafts folder: “I’m on my way to Napier,” it read. The time was 3.59pm, seconds before she crashed.
Her sister Sam says the tragedy has taught her a valuable lesson. “It only takes a split second while you take your eyes off the road for tragedy to occur, and sending a text is just not worth it,” she writes in a heartbreaking blog.
In 2007 around 45,000 Australians crashed while using a mobile phone. A further 145,000 had a near miss. Using a mobile phone increases the risk of an accident four-fold.
Your eyes are off the road for up to six seconds each time you look down to text. And yet we keep doing it. A survey in Victoria has found 70 per cent of motorists aged between 18 and 25 admit to texting while driving. Around one in five say they surf the net.
I had no idea about the extent of the problem until my hubby got a new work car, the Hyundai iLoad, which is quite a big car.
From that height you see it all: The businessman tapping away on the iPad secreted in his lap; the middle-aged Mum sending an email with her two precious kids in the back; the Gen Y who treats it like an extension of his arm.
So what are our state governments doing about it? 4/5ths of f*#k all. Sure, there’s a $265 fine and the loss of three demerit points.
Last financial year, more than 50,000 NSW drivers paid a whopping $13 million in mobile phone fines. But it’s not changing our behaviour. And it’s the same the world over.
In the United States, around 3,000 people were killed last year by so-called “distracted drivers”. In one incident in Missouri a 19-year-old truck driver sent or received 11 text messages in as many minutes before causing a highway catastrophe, which killed two people and injured 38.
This prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to urge all US states to ban the use of electronic devices while driving. US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood calls it “an epidemic”.
In Utah, texting drivers face three months jail and a $US750 fine. Arkansas bans all mobile phone use for drivers between 18 and 20.
And in Japan, you can’t use a phone in your car full stop. This was being considered by Australia’s transport ministers in last year’s draft national road safety report, which found even hand-free devices dramatically increase the risk of crashing.
Talking on the phone can slow your response time by 35 per cent, to that of a driver with a blood alcohol reading of 0.08.
“In my view it is as dangerous as speed and drink driving,’’ said Superintendent Max Mitchell, the acting assistant commissioner, traffic services branch.
NSW police supported the idea of a ban.
Mark Stevenson, an epidemiologist who studies driving distractions, called for more drastic measures: ‘‘Vehicles could be manufactured with in-built blockers so drivers cannot receive phone reception when the car is turned on.’’ Such devices already exist. But no one seems to have the guts to effect change.
We need to acknowledge that this is the new drink driving. Therefore, we should tackle it in the same way with a combination of hard-hitting TV campaigns and tough penalties.
A shocking ad on the dangers of texting while driving was shown at high schools in the UK two years ago. It was bought by the American Automobile Association to air after 9pm, because it was so graphic.
Why not bring it here? Why not double, even triple, the fine? And why doesn’t mobile phone use cop the same double demerit points as other offences over the holiday period?
I believe we should turn texting drivers into social pariahs.
The problem is, we all think we won’t get caught. Like the truck driver on Sydney Road, we give the middle finger to those trying to curb our freedom. Let’s hope it doesn’t take the death of a loved one for us to realise the error of our ways.
Tracey Spicer is a 2UE broadcaster, Sky News anchor, and principal of spicercommunications.biz
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