Let’s have fewer distracted drivers on the road

 

There was an uproar on social media recently when a motorist was issued a summons by the traffic police for using a smartphone placed on her lap.

Placing the smartphone on the lap to navigate while driving is a convenient and common practice, but it’s dangerous and illegal because it distracts the motorist from paying attention to traffic, especially motorcyclists.

The outcry on social media was because motorists thought that the rule was only against holding a smartphone and talking while driving. Nothing about thighs or laps.

The summons given to the driver illustrates that the traffic police have a comprehensive raft of laws evolved from the original 1959 Road Transport Act to penalise dangerous and distracted driving.

While most car makers disable pairing of devices while the car is in motion as a safety feature, there will be drivers who will ignore the danger of distracted driving and multitask anyway. This is recklessly ignorant.

Since there are already laws to apply against distracted driving, perhaps it’s time for the police to go beyond “driving under the influence”.

Could they possibly now approach investigations with distracted driving as the first possibility and seizure of the smartphone as the first action?

For instance, there is a dashcam video of an SUV driven dangerously close to the centre of the road and ramming into a motorcycle. The rider is knocked off the bike and the SUV doesn’t stop. In fact it accelerates away.

Fortunately, the image of the car’s number plate was captured. When the driver confesses or is arrested, the police should also seize the driver’s handphone for forensic investigation.

If police act against distracted driving, make sure that the offender is not prevented from making a video record of the incident. In fact, the police should hope that the smartphone video will go viral. This will educate the public that distracted driving can be dangerous and is illegal.

What about delivery riders who ride with the smartphone in a handlebar holder and who peer at the screen while riding? Certainly, they are endangering their own selves and we trust that the e-riding platform companies will be regulated to improve the safety features of their apps, like disabling the screen if the phone is held.

Or educating the riders to use earphones to listen to navigation instructions rather than looking at the screen.

In any case, we would like to congratulate the traffic police for taking preventive action against a driver distracted by the smartphone and driving dangerously.

But the police could also have been more affirmative and educative of the dangers of distracted driving rather than waffling about a law against placing smartphones on drivers’ laps.

Technology outpacing the law

Quite a few of the new cars that are priced above RM150,000 in Malaysia are modern enough to drive themselves at slow speed up to 20km on well-marked roads in dry weather.

This is loosely called Level 2 autonomous driving. In the motor industry itself, it’s called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (Adas). Car makers have different names for it.

When the motorist is stuck in a long and slow moving jam, the Adas will keep the car moving in sync with the car ahead and stop when the car ahead stops. When the car ahead takes off, the motorist on Adas needs only to tap on the accelerator to activate the automated driving.

On that note, the government should plan to update the Road Transport Act and other relevant laws like motor insurance in view of advances in the automotive industry.

It is a good time to engage the public about autonomous driving and the laws. There are robo-taxis in pilot scale commercial operation in ring-fenced areas of San Francisco, New York, Shanghai, and Beijing.

All these cities have new laws to allow robo taxis. Malaysia needs this, especially the law which says that both the driver’s hands must be on the steering wheel.

The new law must allow the vehicle to be operated without a human and without a steering wheel.

It isn’t too early to update and pass the law as Sarawak will launch its Autonomous Rapid Transport bus system in Kuching within the next four years. The fleet of hydrogen-fuel cell buses will ply on the streets of Kuching without needing a driver if the law is updated in time.

Malaysia could be the first nation in Asean with a world leading autonomous public transport featuring green hydrogen sustainability. This is a much more meaningful achievement than having the tallest flagpole on the planet. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.