Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

The primary motivation behind this legislation is public safety. For that reason, I favour making the use of hand-held mobile devices illegal. However, the legislation could go further. When thinking of the dangers posed by mobile phone use, most will almost certainly consider the impact it may have on human health. The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, for example, states: "Except for an increase in traffic accidents induced by the use of mobile telephones in cars the evidence for a health hazard is at most indirect, but cannot be entirely dismissed". A paper by the University of Michigan transport research institute entitled, Crashes Induced by Driver Information Systems and What Can Be Done to Reduce Them, states:

Looking towards the future . . . Nissan refer to the transition from automobiles to infomobiles. As systems such as adaptive cruise control (ACC), navigation, mobile phones, traffic information, web access, email, and automatic lane control (ALC) see expanded use in the vehicle fleet . . . The implications of these changes for vehicle safety and usability, and more generally, the driving process, have received insufficient attention in the research literature and in public discussions.

It goes on to refer to in-vehicle information systems overloading drivers and compromising driver safety.

From statistics gathered in other countries, it appears that receiving a telephone call poses the greatest threat, followed by dialing and then talking. Navigation systems carry a lower risk but in spite of the fact that there is a small number of vehicles with such systems, they should be factored in as it is clear they are showing up as a risk.

All such technologies — from the type of interface about which I have spoken on both mobile phones and navigation systems to designs that reduce task times and visual demands, together with specifying the optimum location, for example, for a hands-free kit as a means of reducing risks — merit consideration creating a safer driving environment. While I would be happy with an incremental approach banning the hand-held mobile phone to begin with, we need to start looking at the next generation of devices and interfaces to comprehensively deal with this matter.

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