David Penberthy takes SAPOL’s distracted driver sim for a spin

As my body and eyes move gently to the left, so too does my car. Two seconds later, I hear a loud bang, writes David Penberthy of his recent experience with SAPOL.

• How SAPOL’s simulator drives home safety message

I am driving along a busy main road heading towards an intersection sitting on 60km/h. My phone goes ping and I fumble on the dash to check the message.

As my body and eyes move gently to the left, so too does my car. Two seconds later, I hear a loud bang.

When I look up there is a female pedestrian lying motionless on the bonnet of my car. I have mounted the kerb and driven straight into her.

Happily, this wasn’t a real-life incident. It was one of many virtual prangs I had during an illuminating hour at the SA Police Road Safety Centre.

SA Police’s driver simulator cleverly recreates the effects of distraction in real-life driving scenarios.

Aside from asking me to read and send texts, I had Senior Constable Nigel Allen distracting me by getting me to read from flashcards to my left.

The impact of all this was immediate and lethal. I had six crashes.

The simulator is being used to educate teenage drivers about the dangers of using their phones and being distracted by fellow passengers while behind the wheel.

This clever piece of technology is like a Daytona arcade game, only with consequences that go beyond losing your lap.

Superintendent Bob Gray, Senior Sergeant Susan O'Connor and David Penberthy, who is sitting in the South Australian Police driving simulator. Picture: Morgan Sette

They are consequences that are being played out to dismal effect in South Australia right now, with inattention being a factor in many of the fatal crashes that have propelled the road toll to a sickening high.

The most impressive feature of the exercise is how dramatically your car can respond to the slightest level of distraction.

The natural lines of driving are immediately skewed by any sideways or downwards movement of the eyes.

Doing the test shows why that real-life driver you’re sitting behind on Port Rd will suddenly drift left or right or back and forth as their head bows to check or send a text.

It’s scary stuff, and maddening, because it’s totally avoidable.

This program is great for kids but it would be good for adult drivers to do. Kids don’t have a monopoly on being addicted to their devices.

Given the extent to which technology now rules our lives, there’s a great argument for using our commute as a brief period of Zen-like reflection, where we put the damn thing on silent and ignore it for a while.

No text or call is so urgent that it’s worth risking your life for, nor the life of that poor computer-generated woman who wound up on the hood of my smashed-up car.