Sensible solutions

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Dr Joseph Froncioni has long been the leading advocate for making Bermuda’s roads safer.

As a surgeon and later as chairman of the Road Safety Council, he saw too many examples of lives being lost or irreparably injured not to do something about it.

Many of his proposals for making Bermuda’s roads safer have been introduced, including seat belts, which have reduced fatalities and serious injuries among car drivers and passengers, and a graduated licensing scheme for young motorbike riders, which should have similar results if implemented properly.

Since then, the massive amount of statistical evidence he amassed as part of his SMARTRisk research has provided Bermuda with its only hard evidence about what causes collisions resulting in serious injury. So when he speaks, the public should listen.

Today in The Royal Gazette, he discusses the newly introduced ban on cell phone use for drivers, and the provision which allows hands free cellular phone use to continue. That legislation was passed with unanimous support in the House of Assembly, where there was a stampede from all sides to support the bill and to condemn the practice.

Why? Because it seems self-evident that using a cell phone while driving must be dangerous and must lead to accidents. That’s why it is always wise to be sceptical about anything that attracts unanimous support and reflects the conventional wisdom, especially when it is not backed by empirical evidence but assumptions.

Dr Froncioni’s SMARTrisk study did not find that cell phone use was a leading cause of collisions. What was present in many collisions resulting in serious injury or death, was alcohol. And the age group most prone to collisions, minor and major, were bike riders below the age of 20 the least experienced riders, many of whom had had minimal training before getting a licence.

This is not to say that cell phones do not cause inattention and collisions. The likelihood is that that they do. But Dr Froncioni argues, with impeccable if unexpected logic, that hands-free devices are just as distracting. That’s because it’s not the physical act of holding the phone to your ear that is most dangerous, but the inattention caused by listening and conversing with a person who is not in the vehicle and therefore not aware of what might be happening around the vehicle.

So if cell phones are to be banned, then hands-free devices should be banned as well, although how this will be enforced is anyone’s guess. Dr Froncioni rightly says that much more effort needs to be focused on reducing impaired driving and on training young riders. Those are the surest ways of reducing collisions and poor driving behaviour.

Bermuda has a very lax attitude to impaired driving, and changing this is a matter of public education, policing and punishment. Only by actively deterring impaired driving will people stop driving when they have had too much to drink. Training is the only way to reduce collisions among young riders. While a start has been made on this, much more needs to be done.

In the mean time, Dr Froncioni deserves credit for taking the time to study this problem, identify the causes and propose real solutions. Are Bermuda’s politicians listening?

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