Too many of us in the South West are distracted by other things when we are meant to be concentrating on driving.
We’ve all seen it multiple times – that erratic movement of the car in front of us.
Then when we pass the driver they are oblivious to us because they are concentrating on talking or texting on their mobile phone.
Statistics from the Road Safety Commission are truly frightening.
In 2016, the number of fatalities where inattention was a factor in the crash was 28, or 41 per cent of all fatal or serious injury motor vehicle accidents in WA – this figure was only eight per cent in 2015.
In March, South West traffic police conducted an operation targeting mobile phone use in Bunbury and 14 people were caught using their phones in little over an hour.
The grand total every day of distracted drivers in our region could be a staggering figure.
I have attended motor vehicle crashes that were the result of a driver using their mobile phone and being distracted.
Road trauma is a serious subject that most people don’t like to think about until it enters their world uninvited.
The physical and emotional fallout from a serious motor vehicle accident is often with people for life.
Even if the distracted driver survives, living with causing death or serious injury to innocent people is a heavy burden to carry.
People text and talk on mobile phones constantly, without incident.
Believing they can do it again and again and get away with it, without any adverse consequence, they keep trying their luck.
And when it runs out I hope you’re not the passenger in their car, or the pedestrian trying to cross the road.
In an instant, your life can be changed forever.
I have a wish and I challenge everyone to get behind it.
I want to drive my community paramedic vehicle for a whole week and not see another driver in my patch (Upper South West, from Waroona to Donnybrook) use their mobile phone.
I have a wish that everyone will take driving seriously so they are not a distracted driver.
Community paramedics work in a number of regional towns across WA.
They render assistance to volunteer ambulance officers at ambulance call-outs and provide extensive training programs to their region’s sub-centres.
Ken works alongside six sub-centres and 160 volunteers across the Upper South West.
It’s a choice all of us need to take responsibility for – reducing the road toll towards zero, instead of having to ring triple zero.
- Ken Hart- Community paramedic
