A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
I can’t even count the number of times in the last few months alone that I have watched a car weaving back and forth, either moving in the same direction in the lane next to mine or coming right at me in the opposite direction.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has been tougher, to date, than Ontario has on a texting activity in cars that are killing almost as many people as killers with guns do.
Then there are the times I’ve aborted my decision to turn into my own driveway because I looked in my rear vision mirror and can see the driver behind me riding dangerously close to my bumper while looking down at something below their dashboard.
In almost each and every case and, yes, I make a point of looking over as they rush by, the drivers look like they are in their late teens or early 20s, and they are looking down as if they are playing with something around their crotch.
So it was as about as much of a surprise as waking up to the news that the mayor of Toronto has said or done yet another stupid thing to learn earlier this July that a survey of Ontario high school-age drivers finds that more than a third of them admit they are texting while driving. Other polls conducted on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border reveal that more than half of all young people under the age of 25 think there is nothing wrong with diddling their little texting devices while behind the wheel of a car.
Well, I think it is time that governments stepped in and sent these texting and twittering twits a message that there is something very wrong with this potentially deadly behavior with penalties right up to and including the loss of their driving privileges for the rest of their lives.
Sound too harsh? Consider the following.
In 2013 alone, according to Ontario Provincial Police statistics, 78 men, women and children died on the province’s roads and highways under OPP jurisdiction due to “distracted driving” – mostly meaning people behind the wheel of a moving vehicle while using a cellphone or texting device. That is higher than the 57 deaths the OPP reported in 2013 due to people driving while impaired by alcohol.
The Ontario government of Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne decided, earlier this year under a minority situation where the opposition Conservatives and NDP had a gun to her head that said don’t do anything about texting drivers, to increase maximum fines for using a hand-held cellphone or texting while driving from $155 to $280 with no demerit points lost, and what a joke that is. Across the border in New York State, the maximum fine is more like $400 with lost demerit points, and in other jurisdictions in Canada, including Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, the fine is also as high as $400 with a loss of three or for demerit points.
Across the border of our Greater Niagara Region, in New York State where The Buffalo News has reported many deaths involving cellphones and texting in recent years, a column in that paper stated this past February: “Anyone taking the wheel of a car is taking the lives of those on the road in his or her hands. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can multitask by texting while we’re driving.”
Amen. And at the moment and going way back into the Dalton McGuinty Liberal years when the record showed, this kind of thing wasn’t taken seriously, New York State has tougher fines than we do against an activity behind the wheel, cell-phoning and testing, that should fall into the category of a criminal offense with intent to possibly kill others on the road.
While we are soaking up the reality that texting while driving causes more deaths and injuries on the road than driving under the influence of alcohol, keep this in mind if you think I am calling for penalties that are too tough.
The people who get behind the wheel and text are not impaired by alcohol or drugs. They are deliberately, willfully engaging in an activity while driving that turns their vehicle into a possible coffin on wheels. How much closer can you get to willfully engaging in activity that can maim or kill?
“No parent should have to experience losing a child at the hands of a text message,” New York State Govneror Andrew Cuomo said a while back, during an announcement to get tougher with people who text behind the wheel “As the father of three teenagers,” he added, “I know firsthand the importance of instilling safe practices in our young drivers who are developing lifelong habits as they learn to navigate the road,” Cuomo said. “Inattention and inexperience is a deadly combination.”
In a statement, following the release this July of that survey showing many Ontario teens don’t give a shit about the risks of driving and texting at the same time, Wynne -now Ontario’s premier with a recently elected majority government – said she’s concerned that the province’s teens are forming bad habits when it comes to texting while driving.
“It’s very worrisome to me,” Wynne added, “because when young people start to have a habit of driving and texting, that’s harder to break.”
So do something about it, for the sake of all of us on the road who may be hit and killed or seriously injured by one of these texting idiots. Come in with the toughest laws in the world around this willfully dangerous activity, and make it criminal behavior.
Come on, Kathleen. For the sake of the safety of all of us, do it now!
By the way, what another failure of our public schools and those who teach in them not to make this a teaching moment for the young people they are entrusted to provide some lessons in forward into adulthood to. Never mind gong after some kid because a bra strap is showing. Focus on life lessons that are important.
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