Smartphone dependency is a reality that will possibly be tackled with tougher penalties. Meanwhile, campaigns are doing their job. Raising awareness.
Using a mobile phone at the wheel has become worryingly common. If we look around when we stop at traffic lights, it is rare not to see someone with their device in their hand: checking a WhatsApp message, sending a voice note, answering a call as if it were the most natural thing in the world. If we are not doing it ourselves. And when we pay attention to other vehicles, it is not unusual to see someone talking, or even typing on their phone, while driving. Travelling 550 metres without paying attention to the road, the signs or other road users… does not seem to bother us.
The fact that it is now the leading cause of accidents due to distraction – ahead of alcohol, as we discussed here at REAC – should worry us. We are putting ourselves in mortal danger, which is why experts such as Bartolomé Vargas, Chief Prosecutor and Road Safety Coordinator, describe the mobile phone as an essential tool for life which, if misused, can turn against us and, worse still, against the lives of those travelling with us. The lives of others. Vargas’s words should make us all stop and think.
Mobile phone use has soared, according to the 6th Distractions Report carried out by BP, Castrol and RACE: 12% of drivers admit to regularly using social media at the wheel. More than half of those who drive in Spain admit that their mobile distracts them in the car (56%, to be exact). What is more, we are more easily distracted than the Portuguese (50%), Americans (29%) and the English (18%). So says another report, in this case by Liberty Mutual Insurance (“Safe Driving and Road Safety Trends”), quoted by Autocasión.
Mobile phones and driving: campaigns
However, it seems that words are not enough. What about awareness campaigns? They are gradually appearing: such as this initiative by, of all things, a mobile phone brand which, supported by the Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT), appealed to our sense of responsibility and the correct use of these devices. The video ended with this sentence: “writing a message while driving multiplies the risk of a serious accident by 23”, according to data from the American Automobile Association.
The Guardia Civil has wisely turned to social media and digital media to drive home the message that road accidents caused by mobile phone use are a very serious, and growing, problem. We should watch – ideally together with other people – videos like this one which the Guardia Civil shared on Twitter in March this year. Hard-hitting, isn’t it?
This summer it was the Fundación CEA (Comisariado Europeo del Automóvil) that took it upon itself to tell us, paraphrasing the 1980s slogan popularised by Stevie Wonder (“If you drink, don’t drive”): “If you drive, don’t chat”. The video campaign was complemented by the distribution of stickers in the main streets of Madrid by trustees of the Comisariado Europeo del Automóvil and partner companies.