{"id":3097,"date":"2012-04-11T11:34:17","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T18:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2012-04-11T11:34:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T18:34:17","slug":"open-space-texting-and-driving-needs-stiffer-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/04\/11\/open-space-texting-and-driving-needs-stiffer-punishment\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/i>: Texting and driving needs stiffer punishment"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot of drivers have this narcissistic notion that they are the best drivers in the world. It\u2019s as if they believe Jeff Gordon taught them to drive, when, realistically, most drivers behave as if they\u2019ve ingested Charlie Sheen\u2019s tiger blood.<\/p>\n

Worse yet, some of these same people text behind the wheel, when the vehicle\u2019s actually in motion. It really ought to be illegal to text and drive. Oh, wait: here in Victoria, it is! There\u2019s even a fine of $167 and a three-point penalty.<\/p>\n

According to the BC government, over 1,300 drivers were caught from February 2010 to September 2011 texting or emailing with one hand and holding a steering wheel in the other.<\/p>\n

So, in a 19-month span, only 1,300 people were ticketed in all of BC. This number seems a tad low. Makes one wonder how effective this law is. Drivers don\u2019t understand the severe impact that texting while driving can have.<\/p>\n

In 2010, distracted driving was a contributing factor in 104 collision fatalities in BC, according to the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Graphic by Jessica Tai\/Nexus<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More recently, in Quebec, a young woman drove into the back of a truck while texting with her
\nfianc\u00e9. She\u2019s dead now. Imagine how awful her fianc\u00e9 feels. Imagine if she had of taken more lives than just her own. He\u2019d feel even worse.<\/p>\n

The tragedy of it all is there will be many people who still won\u2019t learn. But no one would ignore the laws if the fines were heftier.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a loaded \u201cif\u201d because everybody\u2019s above the law these days. But enforcing the law wouldn\u2019t be an issue if there were a way to prevent it from happening. For instance, car manufacturers could work to create a mechanism, a mobile deactivator that electronically turns off cell phones as soon as the ignition is started.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what society has come to: drivers need to be treated like children so they will behave and obey the rules. Misbehave and toys start being taken away. Continue to misbehave and privileges will be revoked.<\/p>\n

Misbehave again, well, there\u2019s a nice 10 by 10 cell where a lengthy timeout could be served.<\/p>\n

Maybe drivers would understand the stupidity of texting while driving if they had to spend time in jail with a seven-foot tall skinhead named Hanz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of drivers have this narcissistic notion that they are the best drivers in the world. It\u2019s as if they believe Jeff Gordon taught them to drive, when, realistically, most drivers behave as if they\u2019ve ingested Charlie Sheen\u2019s tiger blood. Worse yet, some of these same people text behind the wheel, when the vehicle\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-april-11-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3155,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}