Two stories in today’s newspapers say a lot about where the focus is for saving lives on the highways:
Random Tests Go Too Far
Winnipeg, Canada. Oct. 18 — Police powers to check for impaired driving have encroached relentlessly upon civil liberties, such that innocent motorists are randomly, routinely pulled over and questioned, absent of cause. If an officer suspects any drinking has occurred, drivers must take a test. The penalties for refusing are equal to failing the test...
Now the Harper government wants to eliminate the need for any suspicion of drinking, allowing police to randomly demand a roadside test.
Advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving is celebrating, saying this should make the glass of wine with dinner a thing of the past…
MADD, however, has been strangely silent about the proven greater dangers to human life of talking or texting on cell phones while driving.
Texting and Driving a Costly Business Risk
Miami, FL. Oct 18 — Cellphones and driving don’t mix.
According to the National Safety Council, an estimated 200,000 crashes a year are caused by drivers who are texting. And that doesn’t include the near-misses. Added to that, a recent Car & Driver Magazine study found that texting and driving was more hazardous than drinking and driving, with texting drivers three to four times slower in their response rates than drunk drivers...
Perhaps Candy Lightner, the founder and first president of MADD, was right when she quit the organization, claiming that it its focus had shifted from saving lives to prohibition.
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