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The blindness that cell phones cause

May 18, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
I wish to commend the Guyana Police Force’s ‘Operation Safeway’ for its modest successes over the first four months of 2012.  I admit to being concerned at the disregard that some motorists exhibit for their safety by not using seatbelts; unlikely as it may sound maybe we need to be continually educated on that score.
Although the figures on prosecutions for cell phone use while driving are indicative of a focused intervention I feel that some attention should be paid to the emergent phenomenon of pedestrians texting on cell phones while on the roadways.  Almost daily I have had cause to wonder how many accidents or near misses are occasioned by pedestrians engrossed in whatever it is that they are doing on their phones.
I am sure that many of us have from time to time been faced with a pedestrian talking on the phone and being so totally out of his environment that he was seemingly unaware of the likely consequences of his careless use of the road.
The empirical evidence suggests that this practice is not confined to any particular age, group or gender although researchers at the University of Alabama found that children walking to school while using a phone are particularly prone to accidents.
And lest we forget the personal security aspect there are reports of persons having cell phones snatched while walking and talking or texting.  So there!
We know what the hand-held cell phone while driving restriction is intended to achieve, in terms of road safety, but is the hands-free mode really any better in preventing accidents?  In January 2004 in Michigan a 20 year-old woman was observed not looking down, not dialing the phone, or texting, but looking straight ahead while talking on her cell phone as she sped at 48 mph past four cars and a school bus which were stopped at a red light.
She never touched her brakes as she slammed into the third or fourth car going through the intersection on the green light.  Researchers determined that the crash which caused the death of a 12-year old boy was a “classic case of inattention blindness caused by the cognitive distraction of a cell phone conversation” (LiveScience Bad Medicine 2012).
A National Safety Council March 2010 White Paper on “Understanding the distracted brain: Why driving while using hands-free cell phones is risky behavior” pointed to vision as the most important sense for safe driving (but) yet, drivers using hands-free phones (and those using handheld phones) have a tendency to “look at” but not “see” objects.
Among the problems associated with talking or texting on cell phone while walking is gait disruption “to such a degree as to cause accidents” according to scientists at Stony Brook University in New York who focused on researching the basic mechanics of putting one foot in front of the other while using a cell phone as against “unexpected physical dangers, such as walking into a car or down a manhole.”
Since it is not my intention to arrogate to myself the functions of the Traffic Department I guess we can safely anticipate that they themselves might recognise the need to conduct the relevant research on the factors which inhibit situational awareness and negatively impact on good road safety practices.
Patrick E. Mentore

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