Demands for a Nanny State

It's said -- okay, I won't claim to know by whom -- that Western Australia is a "nanny state". Even The West has occasionally mentioned this. Usually in negative terms, suggesting that being a nanny state is, a bad thing. Okay, again, I can't quote any of the articles that I have noticed. They may have been opinion pieces by the regular columnists.

Anyway... regardless of the facts...

On Tuesday 1 September 2009 The West, in its editorial, made demands for more nanny-state restrictions!

Under the headline, "Phone laws for drivers need to be consistent", The West discusses the suggestion that WA should ban mobile texting while driving. "It is," they write, "hard to argue against such a move." Which is another way of saying, "We need more nanny-state laws."

What do we really want?

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There seem to be two main thrusts in nanny-state laws against drivers: protecting the driver and passengers from themselves, and protecting other drivers from dangerous driving. In the first category are laws banning smoking in cars, insisting on use of seat belts, keeping arms inside the car. In the safety category are all the things which lessen our ability to drive safely: drinking, drugs, mobile phones...

In the safety category: what do we really want?

What we want, is to ensure that drivers drive safely enough to not cause accidents. As time goes on, we discover more and more ways in which drivers act to lessen their ability to drive safely. So what do we do? We pass laws to cover each and every potential cause of dangerous driving.

Back to basics

Most of us -- most of us drivers -- have a drivers licence. To get that licence we passed a driving test. The test was a means to test whether or not we could drive reasonably safely.

The driving test sets a standard. We pass the driving test by driving with an acceptable level of ability. We are given our drivers licence because we demonstrated the ability to drive without causing an accident.

When we drink, we run the risk of losing our ability to drive safely. If we can drive just as safely drunk as sober -- there would be no reason to ban drink driving.

When we take drugs, we run the risk of losing our ability to drive safely. Various drugs affect various people in various ways. Combinations of drugs (including alcohol) affect our ability to drive safely. Because of these combinations, it is difficult to write laws to accurately control our combinations of drugs and driving.

When we speak on the mobile phone, we may drive less safely. When we send an sms, we may be driving less safely. When we change the volume of the radio, we may be driving less safely... Where do we stop the nanny-state laws?

How many laws do we really need!

What do we really need?

There is a group of laws which aim to stop us driving dangerously. We have a set standard of acceptable driving: the level at which we can pass a driving test. Why not combine the two?

Pretend that you -- or, "someone else" -- is spotted driving dangerously. Worse yet, you have crashed your car. Were you breaking the law? Or, the real question, were you driving in a fashion which caused the accident? That is the real question.

Our current crop of nanny-state laws provide a list of "don'ts". What we really want to know is, were you driving worse than when you gained your drivers licence?

Here's the law that we need: "It is illegal to do anything that, if you did it during a driving test, would cause you to fail that test."

In practice: You are spotted doing "something" that looks risky. You redo your driving test -- while doing that same "something". If you pass the driving test then you were not breaking the law. If you fail the driving test then the "something" -- whatever it was -- is against the law.

If you can drink then drive safely: fine. If you can phone and text while still driving safely: no worries. If your driving becomes dangerous when you just tune the radio: then you tuning the car radio is dangerous driving and against the law.

One law covers every possible source of driver risk. That one law also takes account of individual abilities and of all the possible combinations of actions. You can, for example, be retested while drinking, talking and tuning the radio -- if that's what you were seen doing.

One simple law. And it tackles what we need. Not just the latest fad in driving distractions.

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