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IBC launches ad campaign warning against driver distraction


January 11, 2007   by Canadian Underwriter


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The Insurance Bureau of Canada [IBC] has launched a Cdn$4-million public education campaign reminding drivers to keep their eyes on the road and avoid distractions such as cell phone use, text messaging, eating, personal grooming, queuing up CDs, keeping kids quiet in the backseat and even changing clothes while they drive.
“Driving is a full-time job,” noted Mary Lou O’Reilly, the IBC’s vice president of public affairs and marketing, at a press conference announcing a three-month ad campaign to begin Jan. 22 in Ontario and Atlantic Canada.
The IBC presented poll results at the press conference suggesting that although 89% of 1,200 Canadians surveyed said they were concerned about driver distractions, 60% of drivers surveyed said they would not stop using their cell phones when driving.
Survey respondents gave this answer even after they were told that cell phone use made them four times as likely to be involved in a collision.
IBC also released research showing the problem of driver distraction is not the exclusive monopoly of novice drivers. Researchers tested 20 novice drivers and 20 experienced drivers in electronic simulators and on-road conditions involving a driving instructor.
“We expected our research would find that the novice drivers on cell phones drove considerably worse than their most experienced counterparts,” said Mark Yakabuski, vice-president, federal affairs and Ontario, IBC, in a press release. “While the novice drivers did perform poorly both on and off the phone, we were surprised that in some respects, experienced drivers drove as badly as beginners did while on the phone.
“In the end, we found that these distractions worsened drivers’ ability to react quickly to hazards, no matter how much driving experience they had.”
Yakabuski said the IBC decided to go the way of public education rather than lobbying for legislative change to influence driver behaviour because no legislation could encompass all of the possible driver distractions.


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