Sometimes the automobiles suffer from a strange syndrome, with well recognizable symptoms like slight losses directionality, slow reflexes, poor “harmony” with the flow of traffic.The diagnosis is easy: the problem is not of the vehicle but of the driver, distracted by something…
This “something” could be, in many cases, a very useful instrument besides: the cellular telephone.
A study of the ASAPS – Associazione Sostenitori ed Amici della Polizia Stradale – intervenes to fortify the diagnosis. ASAPS has literally observed the Italian when driving to understand how much of they use the cellphone “by hand” instead with earphones or hands-free.
The ASAPS (www.asaps.it) has in fact displaced in the rush hours – from 8 to 9, from 12 to 13 and from 18 to 19 – observers in bypass roads, on provincial roads and in the busiest intersections of the cities examined (Turin, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Rome, Naples, Palermo plus many smaller town); they have patiently counted, during the months of November and December 2013, all the drivers – including bikers – that they incorrectly used the cellphone when driving.
The study, also without great claims of scientific, it has furnished results that arrange with the daily experiences of each of us.
The average of the “telephone operators” in the great cities has been 12,8% of the observed drivers (what they have been 22.800 on a total of 32.650), with the “gold medal” (14%) assigned to Turin and Palermo while the most virtuous city has been Florence, that has recorded “only” the 10,2% of incorrect drivers. The absolute record (over 16%) have been recorded in Verona and Forlì while Rome has the record of the drivers on two wheels; the men (75,5%) phone more than the women (24,5%).
(Click on table to enlarge)
The ASAPS always brings also data coming from USA: a study effected by the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York has concluded that to send a SMS while driving causes more accidents than to put on to the steering wheel after having drunk too much!
It is estimated in fact that to send messages driving provokes every year in the States more than 3.000 deaths and 300.000 wounded among the young people while driving in state of drunkenness they are referable 2.700 deaths and 282.000 wounded.
These figures are gruesome and comparable to the victims of a middle earthquake: what can we do?
Surely the drivers have a scarce perception of the dangerousness of certain behaviors (another study USA reveals that the dispatch of a SMS requires in average around 4,6 seconds, during which a car crosses, at 50 km / h, more than 60 meters) and therefore could be useful to introduce campaign of information and prevention in the schools and in the places of aggregation.
For that that it concerns the adults, by now inveterate in certain behaviors, could be thought about some apps that inhibits the use of the cellular phone if the GPS of the phone says fast moves and earphones or vivavoce are not in use.
Wanting push itself beyond whether not to think about the vehicles to autonomous guide? It can be easy to detect call/sms/mail arriving or starting and make able the computer to take the reins of the car leaving the driver to bustle about with his own cellphone/tablet…
To resort to these sophistications leave us perplexed however: why to risk the life or to wait for the autos of the future if by now many cars incorporated Bluetooth speakerphone? If the auto doesn’t have it an aftermarket car radio that adds speakerphone it coast less than 100 Euro and an earphone or a speakerphone around 20 Euro.
Perhaps the matter is not economical but of mental laziness: we are so superficial to be thought that ours and other people’s safety are worth less than the “bother” to turn on an electronic instrument or wear an !
