Around 17 people lose their precious lives every passing hour in road accidents in India alone, out of which, a whooping number of deaths can singlehandedly be attributed to the use of smartphones while driving. A research conducted years ago presents us with this alarming figure which is yet to achieve its zenith.
Road safety has become a burning issue of late, and smartphones are there only to aggravate the already frustrating conundrum behind the surging number of vehicular mishaps. The world on the whole is not far behind India in this respect. According to the annual report of The Governors Highways Safety Association, USA, the pedestrian fatalities have scooted up by 50% from the year 2009 to 2018 sending a chill down the spines of susceptible masses. The estimated casualties in USA stood at 6,227 for the year 2018. Yet, another survey platform Zebra maintains that 14% of all the fatal crashes comprise of distractions caused by cell phone usage.
It is a dismal picture in the first hand because most of these incidents occur due to the factors that are completely under our control. Each day we are bombarded with the stories of shattered vehicles and videos of ambulance transporting injured bodies to the nearby hospital. Very few of us realize that it could have been prevented. There are a lot of mishaps that were waiting to occur but went unheeded, and resulted in a grief when occasion was ripe. One could have sacrificed a few minutes instead of learning it the wrong way. But the spectators again fail to gather any lesson, and commit the same bloopers to keep this deadly cycle alive.
To add to this woe, there is no feasible government regulation to thwart this menace. There are rules on drunk driving, but how to prevent commuters from using their phones is an untouched subject so far in the records. It is not pragmatic either. You cannot completely censor the lives of individuals, and make them dump their phones at home. It is even practically impossible to keep track of every bloke using the street, and check to ascertain that his smartphone is switched off. The ironical stuff is that smartphones actually help many of the drivers to commute by showing them the directions or best routes to their destination. How then, you deal with such an enigma?
One solution may be churning out awareness campaigns targeted primarily towards the youth. Young people tend to emulate their social ideals, and involving some sport personalities or TV stars would not be a bad idea. The aim should be to make them feel proud of adhering to the implicit rules of safety and precaution. They should regard it their responsibility as informed cosmopolitans to make the road safer for other people and themselves. People who use smartphones everywhere without consideration should be encouraged to be more alert and receptive to their surroundings. A culture of pride should be inculcated in kids from the very beginning for being able to do something without cellphones. But if this tactic fails who is there to blame - it is none but us.
We are apt at laughing our hearts aloud when it comes to other people losing their track, but significantly discount our own mistakes. After a person slips down from atop a steep cliff while taking selfies, another death is reported a few days later on the similar grounds. We see a passersby hit by a truck, but we never stop texting our friend and crossing the road at the same time. It is, as if we have stopped watching television or reading news. There is only as much of cognizance a person can command, and while driving or walking down the lanes you cannot afford to let your attention flutter. You might be a hero in a PUBG game but you cannot try out the same formula on a bustling highway. There's no retake there.
We are free to cherry-pick our route, but why blame lifeless articles for the same. Like many other persistent evils, there is very little that is plausible to be done here by any magic wand. The responsibility of using cellphones judiciously hinges upon the ones who use it. Let us not close our eyes to the reality - Our road safety is in the greatest peril today, and we are the ones responsible for it, not the smartphones.
