Road deaths: 'I've found victims still holding mobile phones'

Emergency medicine consultant Jason van der Velde said: ‘It must become socially unacceptable to use your phone while driving.’

Mobile phone use while driving must become socially unacceptable before Ireland can turn the tide on road deaths, a leading medic has said.

Jason van der Velde, a prehospital emergency medicine and critical care retrieval physician at Cork University Hospital, spoke out as it was revealed that over 750 motorists were detected speeding yesterday despite the recent spate of road deaths.

One motorist was clocked doing 194km/h near Castlemartyr in East Cork, while another was doing 112km/h on the main street in Charleville in North Cork.

Other offences during the first 10 hours of the latest garda national slow down day included:

• A motorist doing 132km/h in a 100km/h zone on the N13 near Stranorlar in Donegal;
• 127km/h in a 100km/h zone on the N13 near Letterkenny in Donegal;
• 108km/h in a 80km/h zone on the R158 near Trim in Meath;
• 75km/h in a 50km/h zone on the N84 at Cloonboo in Galway;
• and 121km/h in a 100km/h zone on the N21 near Adare in Limerick.

Dr van der Velde said that while speed must be tackled, the distraction caused by our addiction to our phones, and by the large digital display screens in modern cars, is one of the major issues facing road safety campaigners.

He has arrived at the scene of fatal road traffic accidents to find victims holding a phone.

“It’s heartbreaking. This is the reality over the last 10 or 15 years,” he said.

“It’s become bizarre that when we receive a message on our phones, we have to immediately respond.

“And we have modern vehicles with everything at our fingertips, so much information coming at you that you are distracted from the road.

“That distraction is real and perverse.”

Until mobile phone use becomes socially unacceptable, as has happened with the non-wearing of seatbelts in cars and the non-wearing of lifejackets on boats, then we are unlikely to halt the rising trend in road deaths, he warned.

“You can throw as much legislation at this as you’d like but until it’s socially unacceptable to interact with somebody on a phone while you’re driving it will not change.

“It must become socially unacceptable to use your phone to reply to someone while driving.

“That distraction we get from allowing other people to influence our peaceful time can end up in tragedy.

“We can blame all sorts of other things but the distraction, and the pain and the misery it causes, it’s heartbreaking.”