Motor telephony: the practices and problems of regulating mobile telephony and driving

This thesis is about the uses of mobile phones while driving, the problems they create and the strategies which have been adopted in addressing the practice. Using a cross-disciplinary framework, I provide a rich description of the regulatory options that have been debated and implemented, highlighting the differences between Victorian, Australian and international jurisdictions. By focusing on the Victorian context, the practice of phoning and driving is used to explore the social and political implications of technological innovation and the emergence of a new regulatory domain. In Chapter Two I provide a historical, technological and sociological account of the use of phones in cars, arguing that this has become an integral part of many people’s lives. Chapter Three weighs up the empirical evidence concerning how phone use affects driving and how this information informs decisions about regulation. Having outlined this context, the thesis moves on to explore the strategies, or technologies of government, which have been adopted in order to modify people’s use of mobile phones in vehicles. Chapters Four and Five consider the development and implementation of legislative measures (traffic regulations, police enforcement, financial penalties and criminal charges), while Chapter Six outlines methods which place the responsibility on individual drivers (such as education and appealing to social norms). Chapter Seven speculates upon the effects and limitations of these strategies. I draw on three key concepts in describing the practices of motor telephony. First, it is about the regulation of an emerging technology in everyday life. The regulatory strategies can be split into two main approaches: institutional (rules developed and imposed by governments and police authorities) and social (measures which rely on appeals to personal responsibility). Second, I explain the regulatory context in terms of a network of negotiation. The social policy debates involve an array of opinions and groups, from government through to private industry, research organisations, media and the driving public. This network of actors supports and promotes regulatory options in different ways. Third, we see that developing and implementing public policy strategies is a complex, fluid and non-linear process. Accordingly, it is possible to see regulatory efforts surrounding the use of mobile phones in cars as an instance of the continuing complexity of various technologies of government as they intersect with the social use of technology.