Weeding out the "Iffys" (instead of banning cell phones)

Written by Eric Peters

December 23, 2009

Let's start with a statement I think we all can agree on: Some drivers are high-skilled and attentive - some not so much.  The high-skilled/attentive driver operates at a higher level - by definition. He has a greater margin for error, so to speak - and can probably do things such as eat while driving, drive with one hand on the wheel, use a cell phone and so on without necessarily becoming a danger to himself or others. The marginally skilled/inattentive driver, on the other hand, starts out with little or no margin for error. They're "iffy" already - even before factoring in potential external distractions such as a cell phone.  To put a finer point on it, high-skilled drivers are probably better/safer drivers even with one hand on the wheel/texting, etc., than marginally skilled drivers are with both hands on the wheel and not talking or texting - in the same way that a superior athlete, even if he's had no sleep and maybe got really drunk the night before, will still be able to run faster, farther (or whatever) than the well-rested, not hung-over non-athlete.  It may not be fair, but it's the reality. People differ in every conceivable way - including their ability to drive a car. We are not all created equal. Some are gifted by nature with superior vision, reflexes and sense of spatial relationships. Some are not.  It's just the way it is.  Here's another way to look at it:  Which driver would you expect to perform better in a slalom-type exercise around a series of cones in a big parking lot: A professional race car driver with three or four drinks in him - or Joe Sixpack completely sober? Who would you rather have sharing the road with you - a 95 year-old lady in an '87 Buick Century who never touched a cell phone in her life let alone in her car, but who has had four fender benders in the past year alone? Or a 35 year-old with excellent vision and reflexes who sometimes makes a call on his cell but hasn't had an accident since he was a teenager? A really good driver with two beers in him, say, is surely less likely to misjudge a curve and end up in the woods (or not notice the light ahead has turned red and fail to stop in time) than a WWI veteran with glaucoma who hasn't touched booze since JFK was president.  But who gets nailed to the wall?  The list of such things is almost endless.  The point being - impairment comes in many forms, some of them perfectly legal. We are very selective about the actions we demonize as "unsafe" - and make the focus of legislative jihads. We all know, for example, that tailgating is much more likely to result in an accident than driving 10 mph over a typically under-posted speed limit. But which action is more likely to result in a ticket? Have you everheard of a "tailgating dragnet"? Not me. Instead, 95 percent of all traffic enforcement is focused on enforcement of speed limits - and all "speeding" is defined as "dangerous" by definition - even when it's demonstrably not.  Need proof? From roughly 1974 to 1995, the fastest legal speed on most U.S. highways was reduced to 55 mph. People were routinely ticketed for doing 60, 65, 70 mph - speeds that had been lawful prior to 1974 and which are once again legal on the exact same roads. Did it suddenly become "safe" to drive at those speeds? Of course not. All that happened was the arbitrary definition of lawful maximum speeds changed by the stroke of a lawmaker's pen. Nonetheless, for years, drivers who got nabbed doing 65 when 55 was still the maximum lawful speed were characterized as "unsafe speeders" by the DMV and their insurance companies. Today, they are once again "safe."  We have "click it or ticket" campaigns - endless harassment of motorists who are threatening no one's safety except perhaps their own (and in an abstract/theoretical way, since the odds are highly likely they won't have an accident today - in which case the decision to wear or not wear a seatbelt is immaterial).  But we don't do much about the old coot doing 26 mph on a road where the speed limit is 50 mph - with a mile of cars stacked up behind him.  And so it goes... Cell phone/texting bans are just the latest politically correct bum's rush; another ill-thought-out crusade to enact yet more dumbed-down laws based on the least common denominator driver - whose driving isn't going to get any better just because another law has been passed.  We'd make a lot more headway if, rather demonizing cell phones - and assuming that just because somepeople are too inept to use them safely while driving then everyone must be too inept to use them safely while driving - we focused on the bedrock problem of rampant low-skill driving itself.  This is the real problem - and it's only going to get worse as cars get more complicated and people have more distractions around them.  We can't outlaw everything; no more doing anything in the car - or else. Well, I guess maybe you could. But that still isn't going to fix things. It'll just make everything even more low-rent totalitarian than it already is. We've got too many laws as it is - and too much time is spent by cops harassing motorists over penny ante stuff that may not and often does not have anything to do with whether they're driving competently.  Weed out the iffys - and we'd have no need for cell phone bans or most of the other rigmarole we're plagued with.  But don't look for that to happen anytime soon.  It makes way too much sense. Comment?

 

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