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Aangelcom

Tuesday 2nd February, 2009

A weekend of devastation and 'no brainer' Joyce says 'blame cell phones'

Mobile phone entrepreneur William Cass Wellington start up aangel.com has spoken out strongly against proposed legislation to ban just the use of mobile phone whilst driving.

"How much of this Queens birthday weekend carnage on our dilapidated roads was caused by mobile phones Mr Joyce?" Cass asks. He says Joyce's comments are typical of a 'no brainer' politician.

"Driver distraction is a sub set of accident causes. Mobile phone use is just one of dozens of things which may lead to driver distraction" he says and labels the proposed ban as pathetic and simply skirting the main issue leading to road smashes, poor road design.
Cass points to Centennial highway just north of Wellington. Dozens of deaths every year, all head on, and everyone preventable, he claims. As soon as Transit put in place the median barrier and cleaned up the lines there have been no fatalities.

"Then incredulously Transit got an award for the project. They should hang their heads in shame as this could have been done years earlier and yet today, just a few hundred meters up the road after the barrier finishes, the deaths continue".

Cass is calling for a referendum to force the government to adopt an aggressive median barrier construction policy.

"New Zealanders should demand an aggressive policy to get this problem sorted. Put in the median barriers and remove the deadly objects located just inches from the road edge, install sand traps and address this properly once and for all, or the carnage will just continue, year after year, killing hundreds more people. The idea this law will have even a slight impact on the road smash death rate for 2010 is delusional."

Of the 25% of crashes attributed to driver distraction, the specific sources of distraction were:

Specific Distraction / % of Drivers
Outside person, object or event / 29.4
Adjusting radio, cassette, CD / 11.4
Other occupant in vehicle / 10.9
Moving object in vehicle / 4.3
Other device/object brought into vehicle / 2.9
Adjusting vehicle/climate controls / 2.8
Eating or drinking / 1.7
Using/dialing cell phone / 1.5
Smoking related / 0.9
Other distraction / 25.6
Unknown distraction / 8.6

(Source Stutts et al, 2001)

Cass says as a nation we should forget about trying to legislate to prevent crashes, we should actually do something about it. He says improved road design combined with driver education are the only way to tackle the problem.

"People will always get distracted. As long as you have human guided steel boxes heading towards each other at a combined rate of 200kms per hour and simply a bit of yellow paint to keep them apart, then fatal accidents will continue. Just the cost of pushing this scandalous legislation through parliament, and then enforcing it would probably pay to fix another 500kms of roads, which would actually save lives"

ENDS

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