Mobile phones and driving danger

The more you cycle, the more you notice how many motorists are using their mobile phones while at the wheel.

The threat of a penalty, which will soon comprise six points and a fine of £200, seemingly has little effect. The fact that drivers fail to take the matter seriously mirrors the apathy exhibited by the authorities; in 2015, cyclist Lee Martin was killed by a driver who had eight previous convictions for using his phone at the wheel. The number of convictions has also halved as have fines imposed by the courts. Another case in 2015 saw a driver who was talking on her phone hands-free run over and kill a two-year-old child. She was looking for a parking space while talking and assumed she had struck a shopping trolley, Harrow crown court was told. The driver escaped a jail sentence.

Hands-free use of phones has been shown to be more distracting to drivers than talking on a mobile. Perhaps drivers need to take everything about driving a little more seriously. A significant proportion of motorists appear to use a car like a washing machine; switch it on and then think about something else. Multi-tasking behind the wheel has become commonplace; eating, talking, arguing, changing music, checking makeup and admonishing children while driving are rarely perceived as posing a danger to ourselves or others. However, research carried out by the AAA Foundation for Traffic in Washington, DC, suggests that even seemingly minor tasks can be distracting.

Researchers asked participants to carry out tasks that ranged in complexity from listening to music up to verifying a number mathematical equations – memorising nouns between each calculations. The tasks were carried out at a desk top, at the controls of a driving simulator and finally behind the wheel of a real car.

The results were consolidated into a single number representative of the mental distraction caused by each task. The participants had their brain waves monitored for ‘event-related potentials’ and at the same time their reaction times were assessed. A score of 1.0 represented doing nothing at all and the maths and word-memory task scored 5.0. The results were surprising:

• Listening to the radio scored 1.21, while having an audio book on the go increased that to 1.75
• Making a hand-free phone call scored 2.27 and a conversation with a passenger in the same car was found to be more distracting at 2.33
• Using a hand-held mobile phone to make a call while driving scored 2.45
• The highest score, 3.06, was attained by those using hands-free texting

Hands-free texting is legal in Britain, but, as the research suggests, potentially deadly.

It always takes time before the law and social convention catch up with this kind of news – it took decades for drink driving to be considered unacceptable behaviour – but in the meantime, the safest course of action is to switch off your mobile entirely.

Ethical insurance

The ETA has been voted the most ethical insurance company in Britain by the Good Shopping Guide.

Beating household-name insurance companies such as John Lewis and the Co-op, the ETA earned an ethical company index score of 89.

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services.

Over twenty six years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance, travel insurance and breakdown cover while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.