The photograph didn’t lie. There I was in the driver’s seat of my car, stopping at the lights, with one hand on the wheel, the other on my lap and holding my mobile phone.
There was nothing to mitigate in my favor. Not the phone addiction we all have. Not my urgent impulse to check who was calling even though I didn’t intend to answer. I was good for it, your honor. I copped the five demerit points that put me perilously close to a three-month licence suspension. I’m now a much more prudent driver (not that I felt I was ever particularly reckless, though I would argue that of course) — slower, more cautious entering intersections and careful never to go near my phone.
Given the terrible annual road toll and its dreadful human carnage in many countries, the need for strict rules and punishments is irrefutable. The momentary lapse of concentration can be lethal.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Mobile phones are, indeed, a danger to everyone on the roads. But I’ve been struck recently (especially since losing those five demerits) by just how many other potentially lethal driver distractions there are.
I live very close to a busy arterial thoroughfare. The streets of my suburb turn into crawling, aggro-filled rat-runs every morning as drivers use the side streets to avoid the lights on this thoroughfare and shave a few minutes off the commute. I see every sort of appalling driver behavior daily. Pedestrians — dog-walkers, kids and old people among them — abused and nearly run over. Every morning my streets host frightening episodes of road rage and shouted threats of violence, as drivers hoon the wrong way up and down lanes and streets to get to the lights and turn first.
And then there are the dangers posed by so many other distractions that drivers subject themselves — and everyone else — to.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Twice recently as I’ve walked with my dogs I’ve seen the same person (silver BMW) reading the same novel, perched over the steering wheel, while slowing down ahead of the red light and waiting for it to turn green. Given that in-real-life death is for a very, very long time indeed, this particular popular Australian novel is not worth dying for. Then again, it’s not entirely worth living for either, in a kind of life-is-far-too-short way, if you know what I mean.
What about the woman (green Range Rover) doing her makeup? I don’t mean while stopped at the lights. No, I’m talking about doing it while crawling along said major thoroughfare. And when I say doing her makeup, I don’t mean touching up her lipstick. I’m talking foundation and eyeliner on the dash. This is her daily routine.
Then there are those people, telephones attached to holders on the dash, who are clearly watching cat videos or Antiques Roadshow or Midsomer Murders (again, remember how short life is and then spare another thought about truly dumb ways to die).
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
I’ve always had the horrors at seeing dogs tethered on the back of a pickup truck. Once on a Victorian highway a long time ago I saw a dog, tethered with too much leash and distracted by another animal in an adjacent car, jump from the back and ... you can imagine the rest. The sight is with me still. The driver careened off the highway on to the verge, narrowly missing another car, when he realized what was happening to his unfortunate animal.
Dogs in cars (particularly in the front seat) can be massively distracting. Especially if, like one of my local rat-run drivers, you are brushing the canine while it sits on your lap. While you are driving a moving vehicle.
Doing one’s hair (combing/brushing) in the rear-view is an oldie, of course, and as potentially hazardous, it would seem, as the huntsman spider that falls on to your lap when you pull down the sun visor. So, too, making a Windsor knot in your tie while negotiating a right-hand turn.
Then there is eating and drinking. The piece of Vegemite toast in the same hand as the wheel and sips of steaming coffee at the red light may be perilous enough. But what about the guy (white Tesla) eating some sort of cereal? From a cup held in one hand? With a spoon in the other? And, therefore, no hands on the wheel.
The Australian national road toll is no joke. Road accidents cause untold misery and catastrophic death rates. I’ve rightly been put on notice for the phone use. And since then I’ve really come to notice how many other dangerous distractions there are, just how dangerous it is out there — and how blase so many drivers are.
Nov. 11 to Nov. 17 People may call Taipei a “living hell for pedestrians,” but back in the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were even discouraged from crossing major roads on foot. And there weren’t crosswalks or pedestrian signals at busy intersections. A 1978 editorial in the China Times (中國時報) reflected the government’s car-centric attitude: “Pedestrians too often risk their lives to compete with vehicles over road use instead of using an overpass. If they get hit by a car, who can they blame?” Taipei’s car traffic was growing exponentially during the 1960s, and along with it the frequency of accidents. The policy
Hourglass-shaped sex toys casually glide along a conveyor belt through an airy new store in Tokyo, the latest attempt by Japanese manufacturer Tenga to sell adult products without the shame that is often attached. At first glance it’s not even obvious that the sleek, colorful products on display are Japan’s favorite sex toys for men, but the store has drawn a stream of couples and tourists since opening this year. “Its openness surprised me,” said customer Masafumi Kawasaki, 45, “and made me a bit embarrassed that I’d had a ‘naughty’ image” of the company. I might have thought this was some kind
What first caught my eye when I entered the 921 Earthquake Museum was a yellow band running at an angle across the floor toward a pile of exposed soil. This marks the line where, in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 1999, a massive magnitude 7.3 earthquake raised the earth over two meters along one side of the Chelungpu Fault (車籠埔斷層). The museum’s first gallery, named after this fault, takes visitors on a journey along its length, from the spot right in front of them, where the uplift is visible in the exposed soil, all the way to the farthest
The room glows vibrant pink, the floor flooded with hundreds of tiny pink marbles. As I approach the two chairs and a plush baroque sofa of matching fuchsia, what at first appears to be a scene of domestic bliss reveals itself to be anything but as gnarled metal nails and sharp spikes protrude from the cushions. An eerie cutout of a woman recoils into the armrest. This mixed-media installation captures generations of female anguish in Yun Suknam’s native South Korea, reflecting her observations and lived experience of the subjugated and serviceable housewife. The marbles are the mother’s sweat and tears,