I crashed my car - but it's not enough to stop me using my phone while driving

A motorist looks at her cellphone while stopped at traffic lights. Photo / NZ Herald

COMMENT:

My heart drops every time I think about the young mother with the baby in the backseat of the station wagon I rear-ended while driving.

I travelled the road every day and thought I knew it well enough that I could take my attention away from the road.

The music playing in the car was blaring through the car's speakers but I didn't feel like listening to it and without hesitation I unlocked my phone.

I hadn't even started filtering through the song list when there was a massive bang.

Violently rocking forward in my seat and peering over the dashboard I saw my crumpled up bonnet and the damaged back end of the mother's station wagon.

Her steely-eyed stare was horrifying but it didn't hit me until she quickly turned her attention to the baby behind her.

Butterflies in my stomach quickly turned to somersaults.

Stepping out of the car I didn't know what to expect. I was fine apart from some bruising but I wasn't worried about myself.

Fortunately the baby and its mother were fine but I didn't have the strength to tell anyone the only reason I put them in harm's way was because I was on my phone.

I still don't.

I wasn't driving fast, no more than 30km/h, but significant damage was caused in the collision.

I was lucky that day didn't start with me seriously injuring someone, or the baby, let alone kill anyone.

Forty-six other Kiwis weren't so lucky - the Ministry of Transport revealing they had died in crashes after drivers were distracted by cellphones between 2009 and 2018.

Mobile phone driving offences

The road toll for 2018 was 379 - one more than the previous year and the deadliest year on the country's roads since 2009.

That's 379 people who didn't come home to their families or hang out with their friends again, 379 lives lost cheaply.

Something needs to change in this country, I don't know what, but something has to change and all the deaths aren't connected to distracted drivers.

Police weren't involved in the day of the crash but I would only have been fined $80 and been hit with 20 demerit points.

That wasn't enough to stop me from using my phone then and still isn't.

Almost every time I get behind the wheel I use my phone, whether it be to text someone, check social media or even change the music on my phone.

Everyone else does it too. Sitting in traffic, there isn't a day I don't notice other drivers doing something on their phone.

I know picking up mine while driving could have changed my life and those around me but despite my brush with danger, I haven't kicked the bad habit.

Something has to change because our need for mobile phones isn't going to kick the habit. Real consequences need to be handed out.

But that's not for me to decide.