Distractions

Life is just full of distractions. There are so many things to be done, so many items needing notice, there doesn't ever seem time enough to attend to them all. And since modern technology has added to those distractions, rather than making it simpler - as we always assumed would be the case - for us to deal with the growing minutiae of our lives in an ever more-complex world, we're becoming more distracted.

There are times when distractions are inevitable and they have to be attended to immediately. When unexpected things happen that take precedence, make us set down whatever it is that we've given our full attention to and turn instead, quickly, to a more immediate need. Such as our attention being drawn to dangerous situations to us or to those in our care, that come first and foremost.

This is a busy world, and we're forever rushing about in that world we inhabit, demanding our constant attention. Nowhere is attention more demanded and necessary than when we're behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, checking for other drivers' unexpected moves, driving defensively, responsibly, and with the discipline required that all our senses are in use.

Yet it's such a commonplace thing to do; drive from home to work, then back again, or going out on numerous daily chores, that it's become second nature. The routine of the commonplace. We feel secure in our abilities to meet all the challenges posed to us on the roads and highways and become bored with the constant need to pay attention. Our minds wander and so do our hands.

Yet all it takes, at a critical time - a time that one doesn't always recognize for what it represents - to be distracted by something; tuning the radio to another station, calling back to the children to settle down, picking up a doughnut and coffee for a hurried breakfast, or answering the cellphone when it rings so demandingly.

Finally, the Province of Ontario has followed the lead of other provinces and states in our neighbour's bailiwick, to recognize in the law the dangers inherent in cellphone use while driving. Darn good thing that is. Unfortunately, not quite good enough to excuse the use of hands-free models and ban the hands-on types. Conducting a conversation while driving is fine, when the person sits next to you.

When someone is arguing with you, committing you to a course of action that's not agreeable, or attempting to discuss complex issues, while you're negotiating traffic and trying to split your attention, something fails. They're not aware, at a physical remove, of what you're facing on the road, and then you're not, either. Full attention to the first task at hand, often takes second place to the urgency of a telephone call.

Let alone text-messaging. Or putting on make-up, or doing some quick note-taking, or looking at a map, or anything remotely similar. Brief inattention to the road ahead and the vehicles moving behind and on either side, can result in a catastrophic surprise. It isn't, in the end, a move to legally ban the use of cellphones while driving that will address this problem of driver inattention.

Since other jurisdictions have discovered that such bans, although popular generally at initiation, don't have the desired result, and people simply quietly resume their use of cellphones while driving, complacent in their driving and attention skills. It's always the other person in the other car who may be driving erratically and without full attention, never oneself.

The real problem lies with our personal sense of entitlement, to do things that we'd condemn other people for doing. People are too confident in their own capabilities, too critical of the lack of ability in others. It's an unfortunate human tendency, another quirk of our human nature.