Philadelphia, like many big American cities, has its share of thorny issues: crime, poverty, drugs, rotting schools and urban flight.
But last Wednesday, one issue overshadowed them all in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper led, front-page banner headline and all, with a hearing last Tuesday by state lawmakers on the death of two-year-old Morgan Lee Pena.
Pena was killed last November in a car crash caused by a driver occupied with his mobile phone.
Morgan’s death is not an isolated incident; it’s a tragedy made all the worse because of the little girl’s age. “We had to make the decision to take her off the machines that were sustaining her life,” Patti Pena, told Senate Transportation Committee members last Tuesday. “We had to watch her die,” said Morgan’s mother.
Pennsylvania’s Hilltown Township and Conshohocken have banned mobile-phone yakking while driving. Hilltown Township is part of Upper Bucks County, where Morgan lived. Brooklyn, Ohio, has cracked down on mobile phone-talking while driving as well.
Similar state and local bans have been proposed, but most have failed. Mark Burris of the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research testified there is not enough data because no one is collecting it.
Police typically are not required to make note of crashes that involve mobile phone-related distractions. Oklahoma and Minnesota keep such stats, according to the Inquirer, but the data-collections methods are unsophisticated.
While reliable data may be short in supply, there is some data. And it is powerful. In 1997, studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the New England Journal of Medicine concluded mobile-phone distractions can increase the risk of a crash. How big a risk? It has been compared to drinking and driving.
How about this statistic: Morgan’s death. With automobile, wireless and Net firms hot to integrate digital technology into vehicles, NHTSA is getting concerned.
Pennsylvania Sen. Joseph Conti (R-Bucks County) now wants a state-wide ban on talking on the phone while driving; it’s one of several options in play. New Jersey is headed in the same direction.
Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Roger Madigan (R-Bradford), according to the Inquirer, blasted the wireless industry for not pushing hands-free technology more aggressively and for taking safety seriously only when the threat of regulation hangs overhead.
So then, where is industry? Wireless officials interviewed by the Inquirer said they oppose prohibitions on mobile-phone use by drivers. Give CTIA credit: they have an admirable driver safety ad campaign.
It is not enough. Not by a long shot.
