Cell phone ban: predictably useless

You could have seen this coming a mile away.

Everyone it seems, but the well meaning do gooders at the helms of transportation and traffic safety policy in BC who never seem to miss a beat when it comes to new ways to justify their existence and in doing so... just happen to find ways to extract money from you. Cell phone bans don't work. I wrote about this in 2009 and 2010. And from the land of unintended consequences comes the revelation that cell phone bans may actually exacerbate the problem as drivers tend to talk longer while on hands free. Remember, the studies show it's the act of engaging in phone conversation which causes cognitive distraction that's the issue, not the operation of the phone.

Lets see, we've ordered our state run disinformation corporation ICBC to spend millions of dollars spreading the word that "Speed is Killing Us" and spent billions of dollars to build highways meant for speed. We've lulled drivers into complacency and clobbered them into compliance. The result? Drivers are reading books, brushing their teeth, eating lunch, putting on makeup, changing diapers, basically anything but focus on the road, on some of the best and most expensive roads in the world.

It stands to reason they're also going to text and phone. Why? Because they can.

Human beings are naturally programmed to be efficient. Driving in BC, hell Canada for that matter (where speed limits are concerned), is a joke. You know the old saying to the employees of McDonalds "if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean"? Well guess what, there's plenty of leaning going on these days on our roads... and lots of cleaning by your police. Problem is they are helping the highwaymen in Victoria clean out your wallet.

Not a week goes by when you don't see some unremarkable video like this one about some allegedly reckless act, some of which would be considered normal speed in other countries, of driving a high performance sports car or sportbike on a road in BC in order to justify the new found fetish of the police, which is impounding vehicles. Actually, they are impounding lots of shitty vehicles too. But the high end sports car seizures from young rich asians play particularly well to the streak of proletariat meanness and socio economic envy that is so prevalent here. Thank god we don't have anything more important to deal with in BC. They (cops) are pretty bold these days too. Virtually every one of the announcements, it seems, accompanies the news that the police will be forwarding the file to the BC Civil Forfeiture Office for some state sanctioned theft of property.

Theft? Did I say theft? Why yes, yes I did.

Theft is the dishonest taking of property or depriving the owner permanently of its possession. Why are the CFO confiscations "theft"? Because the BC Civil Assets Forfeiture Act was sold to gullible British Columbians that it was being introduced as a means of recovering ill gotten gains from hardened criminals. That's not what is going on here at all. So it's dishonest activity coming from an office that is self funding (read profit center) and it's no accident that it's looking to diversify its reach. Hence, we've got some serious problems on our roads.

Anyway, I digress.

Ponder these questions: Do you think a driver on a race track is making phone calls? Do you think someone driving the autobahn at 240 kph is looking in the mirror putting on her lipstick? No, and the answer as to why is obvious. However, for the crowd in Victoria, here's the answer: because driving when there are no margins for error results in concentration like there's no tomorrow.

It's a blindingly simple concept really.

Until the bar is raised in BC, instead of lowered to accommodate the inadequacies of the lowest common denominator, we are going to see more and more distracted driving. While it's true that higher speeds, in the event of a crash, increase carnage and injury, it's important to realize crashes happen at any speed and the odds of a crash increase as distraction increases. The goal should be crash prevention and not focused almost exclusively on damage mitigation as it is and has been.

I've said it all along and I will say it again, micro managing drivers is not the answer. Raise the bar, people will rise to it and in doing so they will (generally) do what's right.

Hello, may I speak to Victoria please?