Whoa Nellie!

Recently Ontario followed many other jurisdictions in banning the use of hand-held devices while driving. As a victim of a texting teen driving into me at a stop light, I support such a ban, and in fact would go one further and ban the use of any cell phone, hand-held or not, while driving.

But has the government created an unintended consequence by this ban? Twice yesterday, in the space of about 15 minutes, I had the car immediately in front of me slam on the brakes and dive for the shoulder of the road – no signal, no shoulder check. As no road hazard was obvious, it could only be because they’d dropped their lit cigarette between their legs, or it was a Pavlovian response to a ringing cell phone.

Fortunately I was able to avoid any unpleasantness due to good road conditions, little traffic, and my own attentiveness, but it got me to wondering if the authorities have seen a hike in rear-end collisions since the imposition of the ban. I wouldn’t be surprised.