17 drivers talking on cell phones is way too many
MONDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — It was almost a footnote to a meeting of the City’s policing committee — Kamloops Speed Watch volunteers keeping watch on drivers had noticed 17 drivers talking on their cell phones without the benefit of Blue Tooth.
(City of Kamloops photo)
That’s illegal. The reason is that drivers aren’t good at doing two things at once. In fact, recent scientific studies have shown there’s no such thing as multi tasking. The human brain is incapable of handling more than one task at a time.
We try it all the time, and think we do it, but we don’t. What happens is, the brain switches its focus back and forth from one task to another. It can do it very quickly, but while it’s working on one task, the other is being ignored.
That’s why talking on the cell phone while driving is so dangerous. While we’re talking, we aren’t functioning as drivers. People get hurt and killed that way.
Seventeen drivers isn’t a lot out of the hundreds that were checked during that particularly Speed Watch check, but it’s 17 potentially fatal accidents. That’s way too many.
So, to both Mel and his old friend Peter, since “recent scientific studies have shown that “there’s no such thing as multi tasking”, why are the police exempt from this law? Use of the mobile office that is in every police car today must be much more distracting than carrying on a telephone conversation. Police officers are still human and they don’t multitask better than anybody else.
Oh! I see, now your playing policeman….,.Wow! That’s a change coming from someone, who not so long ago, didn’t have a kind word for the police. Actually, this is a good change for the better. The police need support regardless from where it may come from. More so when it actually comes from the News Media. This is good! So keep it up Mel! You’ll always my have support when it comes to supporting our local police. YOF Peter