I have been amazed at how many Italian drivers, (and I have to admit I am generalizing here because I don’t know if they are all Italian drivers but certainly all the cars are Italian) drive whilst on their mobile phones and this isn’t just an isolated case of one or two people, or regional and solely in Barga, it is something that they all seem to do. Do they not realize how dangerous it is?
The other day in the area of the secondary school a bus driver with a bus full of students, wasn’t watching the road ahead, I guess because the bus is bigger than most other vehicles on the road, he probably thought that he could just drive through the congested area as if there was no one else around, narrowly missing the front wing of my car and guess what, Yes, he was on the phone.
Then I was driving round to Piazza Fiat and a woman again on her mobile phone oblivious to everything else that was going on narrowly missed hitting me again. Richard and I comment on it as we are driving around. I am really surprised that there aren’t more accidents caused by this misuse of mobile phones whilst driving.
I can also recall another time when we were at a busy roundabout there was a man riding his motorbike, in the middle of the road, weaving over the entire road and yes he was using his mobile phone, he obviously didn’t know where he was going and was trying to get directions.
In the UK you would be stopped and heavily fined if you where seen using a mobile phone whilst driving but here it seems to be the norm and a curse of modern day technology. And I haven’t even touched on the fact that they ignore road signs, they drive too fast and too close to the car in front of it, they overtake on blind bends, they can be easily distracted by other drivers and that’s before we get onto the drinking and driving, oh and finally the speeding.
It is reported that driving in Italian cities, Rome in particular which has been named, as one of the most dangerous city’s in Europe for traffic accidents.
It is actually illegal to drive whilst using your mobile phone in Italy and you can be fined up to 92 Euros based on today’s conversion rates per infraction. So why do so many people drive whilst on the phone. Research undertaken by the European Commission in 2009 shows that using a car telephone while driving is a distraction for the driver which then causes driving behavior which adversely affects road safety.
The biggest problem even if using hands free mobile devices whilst driving is the diversion of attention from driving to the conversation itself and it is stated that the extent of the negative effect of telephone usage whilst driving depends on the complexity of both the conversation and the driving situation. Driver reactions times are between 30-50% slower when using a telephone whether hands free or not.
With the speed that technology develops such as in-car access to email, internet and mobile visual display whilst driving presents the potential for a wide range of new problems for the modern day drivers. It is not only a problem for the young novice drivers already experiencing a higher risk of accidents, older drivers can find it more difficult to conduct two tasks at the same time as driving.
Studies show that there is a huge increase in the likelihood of being involved either in a crash leading to property damage or serious injury is increased by a factor of four when one of the parties are using a mobile phone. Crash involvement escalates with increased usage of the telephone but it is not exclusively due to solely using the telephone since users also engage in drink driving and excess speed.
Incidents include a car swerving in front of another car whilst reaching for his mobile phone – the other car driver died, or a driver using his mobile phone collided with and killed a child pedestrian, or a driver pulled out to overtake, travelling at 70mph while using a mobile phone he collided with an oncoming vehicle who’s driver was killed and this is just a small number of the accounts of accidents whilst the drivers where answering or conversing on their mobile phones.
So pay attention whilst driving especially when you see drivers using their mobile phones it is proven that there is a higher risk of incident and injury.
Keep safe do not use your mobile phone whilst driving – switch it off until you reach your destination lets keep the roads of Barga safe.
Article by Sensone