Banning the mobiles

Banning the mobiles

County View
John Healy

HAND-HELD mobile phones are banned for Irish drivers, but it may not be too long until the hands-free version follows the same route.
Growing evidence from studies in Britain and America suggest that mobile phones are a traffic hazard, full stop. One American report goes even so far as to claim that using a hands-free kit when driving causes the same level of impairment as being over the alcohol limit.
The consensus among researchers is that talking on a mobile phone is more distracting than speaking to a passenger or listening to the car radio. Key driving skills such as traffic alertness, observing traffic signs and decision-making are all impaired when one is talking on a mobile.
The findings are based on the theory that while talking to or listening to a passenger is a relatively passive experience, carrying on a conversation on the mobile is more demanding of a driver’s attention and concentration.
The research showed that, while in-car conversations could be relaxed and unhurried, there was an urgency about mobile interaction which made it imperative to keep a conversation active and keep the dialogue moving at a fast pace.
Driving and talking, it is claimed, is cognitively demanding, resulting in poorer driving performance and ultimately having a negative effect on road safety. The British Highway Code states that all mobile phone use is distracting and should be avoided, even though one method is legal and one is not.
With the road safety lobby preparing the ground for an all-out ban on mobile phone use in any format, it can be only a matter of time until the authorities take heed. The days of mobile phone conversations to while away a slice of a long drive across the country are numbered.
It’s yet another ‘control’ that drivers won’t take kindly to, but will be able to do little about.

BEAMING FUNERALS AROUND THE WORLD
MANY of us have been among funeral goers who were appalled or intrigued, in equal measure, to see photographs of the deceased being taken by obvious arrangement with a grieving family. The purpose, it would be later explained, was to send the final image to family members in distant places who were unable to travel home for the obsequies.
Since then, especially in Northern Ireland, there has evolved the fashion of tape recording or even videoing the funeral service, so that mourners living abroad can experience a little of what the final ceremony looked like.
Now, an enterprising undertaker in County Down has gone the whole hog by offering a web-casting service at his funeral homes, so that relatives in Australia, Canada or the US can sit in their homes and follow the whole service live and online.
James Clarke, who runs the business in Bangor, has had cameras discreetly installed into the funeral chapel, internally and externally. Those watching live online can view the mourners arriving at the church, watch the entire service and follow the hearse and cortege as the ceremonies come to an end in the graveyard.
Asked about whether the innovation would catch on in rural Ireland, most undertakers thought not. Live web-casting of funerals would be a bit too far, the general response suggested. Michael Kilcoyne, one of the west’s most well-known undertakers, was of the opinion that cheap travel had now made it much easier for mourners to be able to fly home to funeral ceremonies. In addition, funeral attendance is a ritual observed most strongly by the older generation who, in turn, are not so attuned to web-casting.
And there is too the in-built superstitions which are attached to the rituals of the dead, and in which web-casting would be a less than welcome innovation.

MICHAEL, MAN OF THE PEOPLE
APROPOS funerals, the tireless Michael Ring was credited as the all-time record holder in funeral attendance in a new political series on RTE 1.
‘So You Want To Be Taoiseach’, presented by Ardal O’Hanlon, is a fascinating, in-the-know, well-researched series on how one makes it to the top of the political tree.
Last week’s programme dealt with the very basic business of not just winning a Dáil seat but, having done the business the first time, how to successfully hold on to it. Remaining close to the grassroots was the number one rule and it was in that context that Michael Ring was nominated as the most astute politician in the whole country.
And, while even Michael himself would dismiss the claim of his attending 12 funerals a day, 21st parties, first communions and confirmations, the slight exaggeration did nothing at all to dent his image as the man of the people.

STEPHANIE FETED IN DUBLIN
THE concept of volunteerism has taken something of a pasting in recent times, with the reality of most people being too pressed for time to allow them to give some to others.
Castlebar community activist Michael Brophy has gone public to warn that Community Games will simply fold unless more people are prepared to get involved. It is not the first time that Brophy has warned that parents of young children cannot expect a small core of dedicated volunteers to provide the structures for Community Games. This year, however, there is an indisputable ring of frustration to his comments, an air of finality to suggest that his patience has at last reached breaking point.
All the more encouraging then to see a young Ballina student being honoured in Dublin for her unselfish and exceptional volunteer efforts.
Stephanie Carrabine, a Leaving Cert student at St Mary’s Secondary School in Ballina, was one of 20 young people who were feted at the Burlington Hotel by An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and John Hume.
Each was also presented with €500 and an engraved silver salver, representing the inaugural presentation of the Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards.
Stephanie’s main contribution is to the MS Therapy Centre in Sligo, and this young woman’s success gives the lie to the prevailing belief that the spirit of volunteerism is dead beyond hope of revival. Long may Stephanie Carrabine continue to give the best of good example as to what service to community is all about.

WHEN SINN FÉIN VOTES COUNT
SO the first real trading of punches in the coming election in Mayo has seen Gerry Murray of Sinn Féin lay down the gauntlet to the Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach-in-waiting, Enda Kenny.
In what augurs badly for inter-party relationships as the debate hots up, Kenny has come under the cosh from the Sinn Féin man over what he claims to be his poor 32-year record in public life.
Most commentators were surprised at the onslaught from Murray – one of the most even-tempered of public representatives – at a time when the various protagonists have barely marked out their pitches.
The most stinging bash came when Murray revealed that, while in public, Fine Gael professed to want nothing to do with Sinn Féin, in private it was quite another story. A procession of outgoing Fine Gael senators have been forming a line to visit Gerry Murray’s home in Charlestown, there to seek his valuable vote (as a member of Mayo County Council) when the Seanad elections are held later this year.

LIGHT ROW IN HOSPITAL
IF you thought that the health service was all about nurses’ strikes and consultants’ contracts, think again.
The question of how many electricians it takes to change a light bulb is at the centre of a pay dispute at Cork’s University College Hospital.
It all started when the hospital authorities, as part of a work re-organisation process decreed that ‘small, non-essential electric light bulbs’ could be replaced as required by non-electricians. However, the electricians’ union, the TEEU, was having none of it. Changing light bulbs was electricians’ work, and should remain so.
The dispute went to the Labour Court with management contending that, from a cost point of view, it would require an electrician to attend on overtime even for something as basic as changing a bulb in a bedside lamp. The HSE did concede that some bulbs would need changing by an electrician. The union, however, insisted that no bulbs could be changed by non-electricians.
As a result of the stand-off, the HSE withheld payments due to the electricians under benchmarking, which naturally upset the tradesmen even more.
Faced with the conundrum, the Labour Court did its best, but without – pardon us on this one – shedding much light on the problem. Its recommendation? The court ruled that it was ‘not unreasonable to expect electricians to co-operate’ in the proposed bulb-changing regime.

LEADING LADY OF MAYO CHARITIES
CONGRATULATIONS to Castlebar’s Frankie Forde Waldron, tireless community worker and unselfish supporter of a myriad of good causes, who has been nominated as winner of the Duffy County Community Award for this year.
Named after the late and much loved Matron of Mayo General Hospital, Kay Duffy, the award is a prestige recognition of people who have performed above and beyond the call of duty in voluntary service to the community.
The late Kay Duffy would have been pleased with the decision of this year’s adjudicators, not least because both she and Frankie were involved so much in the early years of Mayo Rehab.
Since then, Frankie has given her time to the widest range of activities from choral singing in the parish church to service at Knock Shrine, from the old Castlebar Song Contest to a hundred charity events, for local causes.
She is the vital link in the hugely successful Cape Cod walk, held each year as a major fund-raiser for the Mayo-Roscommon Hospice. The persuasive Frankie – renowned for the charm with which she recruits support from every quarter – has turned the walk into a real transatlantic goodwill project, with the Irish emigrant community in Boston coming on board with invaluable organisational back-up.
So, well deserved, Frankie. But please don’t let this be a sign that it’s time to rest on your laurels.

CHAMBERS WON’T TAKE NO
THERE’S a second chance for Minister Martin Cullen to make good on disappointing the Western Rail Corridor lobby last week when he meets Dáil candidate, Frank Chambers, in Westport tomorrow.
But if the Minister thinks that Chambers will be fobbed off with more vague assurances about the N5 road from Castlebar to Westport, he has another thing coming.
The redoubtable Chambers has put his reputation on the line with his stance on the N5 and nothing less than a specified starting date, a specified financial allocation and a specified time frame is going to satisfy him.
Chambers’ protest walk on Easter Monday from Westport to Castlebar confirmed that the Newport man means business and if that means ruffling the feathers of his own party and its Ministers, so be it. Toeing the party line may go down well in Dublin, but it sure doesn’t win many votes in Mayo.