tim's experiment

Driving through the Lion Rock Tunnel the other day I noticed that the car in front of us was going very slowly, and wandering about its lane. Was the driver drunk? Hardly, at 11 in the morning – though my only encounter with the new hi-tech random breath test machinery was at a similar time on a Sunday, so perhaps there is some wrinkle to local drinking that I have not spotted. After a while we came to the other side of the tunnel, and the end of the double white line down the middle of it. I changed lanes and overtook. If there is a nutter on the road I always feel you are safer in front. My wife then explained the mystery: the erratic driver was deep in conversation on her telephone.

I cannot imagine how anyone can be foolish enough as to suppose that they can conduct a serious phone conversation and drive at the same time. Of course we all think we can do two things at once and if the road situation is peaceful or you are waiting at a traffic light then no harm is perhaps done by a few words. But a conversation the length of the Lion Rock Tunnel?

I suppose fossils like me are spared a certain amount of temptation by our old-fashioned relationship with the phone. When I was growing up a family thought itself lucky to have one phone. Indeed at one time because of a shortage of connections we shared a “party line” with a family across the road. This was an interesting arrangement because it meant that when one user picked up the phone he might be treated to an ongoing conversation conducted by the other. In those days the family phone sat in the living room, or sometimes the hall. It was securely moored in place by the wire which connected it to the wall. There was little temptation, or indeed opportunity, to do anything else while you were using the phone. Things were a bit more flexible in the office, but not much. Some people would sell you a piece of rubber which would enable you to perch the phone on one shoulder. This would leave both hands free for typing. But serious typists used headphones. So you will not be surprised to hear that while I am fond of my mobile phone and make some use of its non-phone abilities I also occasionally still forget to take it with me in the morning.

Digital natives who have grown up with this sort of thing are less inhibited. I received an email the other day inviting me to sign (electronically) a pledge not to text while driving. Apparently AT&T had agreed to donate $2 per person who took the pledge to an organisation seeking to improve the safety of young drivers. I am not sure I am quite the sort of pledger they had in mind but I earned the $2. Really, though, I thought the pledge request was a bit insulting. What sane person could possibly be tempted to try to key in a text message while driving? Apparently the answer to this question is you would be surprised. Texting while driving is a recognised cause of accidents among young drivers in countries where there are numerous young drivers. If you ferret on Youtube you can find some fairly gruesome propaganda videos intended to discourage the practice.

A less serious problem from the same source is that many young people now assume that they are always calling a mobile phone. When there was only one phone in the house it often happened that nobody was particularly close to it when it rang. Also, some people in those days thought there were more important things to do that answering the phone, and would carry on with whatever they were doing. “You get it,” would be shouted, and then there would be an argument. The caller, meanwhile, would be patient. After all the person who was going to answer might be upstairs, in the garden or on the toilet. So most callers gave it a couple of minutes.

This is no longer the case. When at home I still use an old-fashioned wire-in-the-wall job. This is not because I am a hopeless nostalgic but because on our hill the mobile reception is bad. You can get text, you can connect calls, but you cannot really hear each other. So the phone rings, I drop what I am doing and proceed at a reasonable speed to the warbling machine, and when I pick it up … silence. The caller has already abandoned hope.  This category of failed calls should not be confused with the one where a cold caller from some survey or marketing company hears “hello” and concludes that he or she is not going to be able to conduct his conversation in Cantonese. Then you hear an audible click.

The moral of this story is that if you are calling someone, give him time to answer. He may be in the bath.