By any reckoning the worst offenders on the road, and the ones who most often get away scot free, are the drivers who remain busy on the phone while driving. You get noticed when you jump the red light or whizz past at break-neck speed but the person on the mobile holding the steering is a silent operator, revealed only when he has caused an accident. Moreover, he or she may not kill but can cause death on the road.
The thing is, one must not mix driving and talking or SMS-ing on the phone. Those rash enough to remain glued to their phone while driving, busy not only making calls but also texting or using Whatsapp etc. must remember that by their rash action they are putting at risk their own lives as well as those of their passengers, family or friends in case they are with them. And beyond that, they are jeopardising the lives of innocent road users – fellow drivers on the road, pedestrians, school-going children, cyclists.
Remember the lady driver who caused perhaps the most expensive accident in the history of road traffic in Bahrain since the advent of cars in the Kingdom when her actions resulted in alarmingly-high damage to a batch of expensive racing cars being transported from the shipyard to the F1 grounds? All that she was doing was talking on the phone as she merely looked at the road without paying attention to what was happening there. Yes, when you are busy on the phone you are merely looking at the road since your mind is elsewhere.
Remember that no phone call is worth the risk of causing an accident which can be fatal or may incapacitate you for life or at the very least put you in hospital for long, leaving your families and loved once traumatised in either scenario.
Even the use of a hands-free mobile phone is inadvisable. Its use is not risk free; it merely reduces the risk of an accident a little because the problem, as stated earlier, remains the same – you are merely looking at the road without the faculties to take appropriate decisions on the basis of what you are staring at.
That’s because when you are making or taking a call even on a hand-free phone you are still mentally engaged with the person at the other end and your attention is thus diverted and remains diverted for the duration of the call.
Your eyes might be on the road but not your mind and therefore you are very likely to overlook any hazards and signals on the way, eventually bumping into the vehicle ahead or jumping the red light. This is not to rule out that the talkers on the steering wheel often involuntarily tend to move slowly thereby irritating the drivers behind them.
So shut that phone and put it in your dashboard as long as you are driving.
So drive safe. Switch off that gadget when you hit the road. And bring it back to life only when you have switched off your engine.