Navigating Risk

This chapter situates the issue of distracted driving in a ‘risk’ context, arguing that this concept helps to understand both the problem and the responses to it. The discussion, again supported by empirical data, suggests that phone-using drivers operate with their own understandings and calculations of risk, and that they are able to locate and deploy contradictory logic which allows them to ignore safety messages and evidence that their behaviour is likely to cause harm. The apparent differences in handheld, as opposed to handsfree, phone use are also discussed in risk terms. While other drivers, and other offenders are identified as causing ‘real’ risk, handheld and handsfree drivers refer to their everyday experiments in risk which have not, so far, resulted in harmful consequences and which therefore appear as false positives.