Road safety – New campaign against using telephones while driving –

Posted on by admin

New campaign against the phone while driving

Road safety - New campaign against using telephones while driving -

Faced with a further deterioration in road safety figures, the government is launching from Sunday a new awareness campaign on the dangers of the telephone "in driving situation" (and no longer only "at the wheel").

Following a deterioration in road safety figures in recent months (fewer accidents but "much more serious"with a 16.8% increase in deaths in October), the government is preparing to launch a new campaign for"alert the French to the dangers of using the telephone while driving".

Note in passing the use of the expression "phone when driving", instead of the more commonly used one of"phone while driving". Because in order not to stigmatize motorists, Jean-Louis Borloo, Dominique Bussereau and Michèle Merli are addressing all vehicle users:"at the wheel of a vehicle, on the handlebars of a two-wheeler, whether or not it is motorized, a second of distraction can have dramatic consequences", explain in chorus the minister, his secretary of state in charge of transport and the interministerial delegate for road safety:"in the event of an unforeseen event, the reaction time for a driver on the phone increases by 50% on average. The stopping distance of the vehicle in an emergency is therefore greater and may be the cause of an accident".

After the slogan "When driving, the voicemail answers"attempted in 2006, it will now be necessary to remember that"Calling while driving means being somewhere other than the road"Because according to a study by INRETS (National Institute for Research on Transport and Safety) conducted by Marie-Pierre Bruyas and Andre Chapon – confirming the fears of two-wheeled users, often frightened by the lack of vigilance of motorists, and the fight led for years by the FFMC (read in particular) – driving while calling provokes "a certain fixity of the gaze which results in a negligence of surveillance, in particular in the rear-view mirrors of the peripheral field".

"Increased heart rate"

Using the telephone while driving – including with a hands-free kit! – also results in "a poorer appreciation and perception of situations, an alteration in the attention allocated to driving and an increase in heart rate, reflecting an increase in mental load linked to the difficulty of simultaneously performing two tasks", further indicate the researchers.

In 2007, the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory (ONISR) already estimated that "7% of accidents could be avoided if no driver used a cell phone while driving".

However, according to a survey by the Road Safety and Traffic Delegation (DSCR) carried out by telephone in March 2008 with a sample of 2004 people representative of the French population, "41% of drivers agree that they sometimes use this means of communication while driving"…

Calling while driving would multiply "accident risks by 5", estimates the government, hastening to specify that it is about the"fourth cause of death on the road after alcohol, speed and not wearing a seat belt".

So would automatic speed cameras not be the one and only solution to road safety problems, any more than speed would be the only cause of road accidents? One would have identified, after long years of research, a factor superbly ignored by the authorities – of right as of left – for more than 30 years: the concentration, the vigilance and the attention to the others? To be continued … Stay connected !

Related articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *