I’ve recently joined the ranks of BlackBerry slaves. So far I haven’t walked into traffic or bumped into a lamp post while checking e-mails on my daily stroll down to the legislature.

Distracted driving, rather than walking, is the public policy topic right now. Then again, Victoria is the only place I’ve ever lived where people read books while walking down the sidewalk. Along with scooters, protesters and tour groups still holding the shape of the bus that brought them, the capital’s walking readers have perhaps honed the alertness of our pedestrians, if not our drivers.

These ambulatory novel readers (they prefer fiction) are greatly outnumbered these days by the screen readers and thumb typists who populate the sidewalks between government offices.

When I mention my BlackBerry newbie status to Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA Norm MacDonald, he winces and extends solemn condolences. At first I think this is the deadpan humour he’s become known for in question period. But no. “You’ll get phantom buzzes,” he confides, after glancing around to be sure we’re alone.

Veteran CBC radio reporter Jeff Davies also flinches involuntarily when I mention it. “During the election it wouldn’t stop,” he says, fishing his out and eyeing it like it’s a hand grenade or a poisonous snake. “Buzz, buzz, buzz.”

Yes, it goes off when I’m driving, and I’ve learned to give it a quick check, put it back in the holster if it’s an e-mail or answer it if it’s a phone call. It seems no less hazardous than my old Motorola flip phone, which I would occasionally use, speed dial only, while driving.

This could soon be illegal here in B.C.

Public Safety Minister Kash Heed has launched a public consultation before considering new rules to cope with the whole music player-phone-camera-computer-GPS thing. His fellow cops are behind him, their in-car laptops poised for word on new rules to control the mayhem as the digital generation takes over the roads.

Comments were invited June 30, and within three weeks they had about 2,500 responses from individuals and organizations. The consultation ends Aug. 7 and the ministry declined to release any details to me.

It’s safe to say the main issue is either banning mobile device use while driving or allowing only hands-free, as Ontario will do this fall.

This is the sort of gesture politics one would expect from Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty, who must have been advised that headsets don’t help.

Many people reject this idea, but Canadian and U.S. researchers concur. A new report from the B.C. Superintendent of Motor Vehicles summarizes their data, showing driver distraction is a factor in about one out of four vehicle accidents.

The report says that drivers using cell phones and other wireless devices can miss as much as half the visual information available to them on the road. And hands-free setups show no evidence of reducing risk.

(Listening to the radio or books on tape does not impair driving performance.)

Psychologist David E. Meyer of the University of Michigan tells the New York Times it’s because phone conversations conjure up images in the mind, of the caller and other things. That’s fine in routine driving, but when a vehicle swerves or a pedestrian steps out unexpectedly, the brain doesn’t have enough “processing power” available to respond quickly.

Those of us who struggled through the early days of computerized news are well aware that pictures are hogs, eating up processing power as well as hard drive space.

A ban on voice and text communication while driving would be safer, but I predict we’ll follow dull, ineffectual Ontario again.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers.

tfletcher@blackpress.ca