A couple of comments

April 14, 2014 · 0 Comments

Bill Rea’s column of April 3, “How do you miss a school bus?”’
Your last sentence was “. . . maybe the new rules aren’t so bad after all.”
But there is a big loophole, in that one is still allowed to use a fixed, hands-free telephone while driving.
The hands holding an object alone is not so critical. After all, we were not only taught in the ‘50s to use our arm outside the window to indicate intentions such as turning or stopping, it was even obligatory and part of the driving test.
Rather, it’s the conversational distraction which is a big part of the problem.
How can a driver pay attention to the traffic when the boss yells at him “You’re fired!” or a wife calls her husband; “I packed my suitcase — a taxi is picking me up, good-bye George.”
One will be distracted by most any subject discussed on the phone.
It is still different talking to passengers in the car. While that is also a distraction, the passenger, however, also has his eyes on the road and may quiet down and even draw attention to a situation such as a traffic light.
Think of the proverbial “back-seat driver.”
Phoning while driving: Bad idea, even with hands-free.
Second, MP David Tilson on the Holocaust:
After mentioning the Nazi atrocities, he said “These . . . crimes against humanity must never be repeated.”
But since then they already have, more than once.
Witness Cambodia which exterminated a quarter of its population, and Ruanda with a tally of nearly a million.
And the world stood by.
Third: I really appreciate and look forward to the contributions by your correspondent Claire Hoy.
With his reporting, he takes the paper beyond the local village news and provides a much wider horizon.
Wulf Graunitz,
Palgrave