ARE you a Tweeter? Perhaps you want more details, so Facebook is the go. Maybe you prefer pictures, so you use Instagram. Or if you need moving pictures to get your fill of kittens, there’s Snapchat.

The 21st century – if the first 16 years of it are anything to go by – may be remembered as the “Social Century”. We have more ways than ever of communicating with each other. So many, that the days of phones being used to make actual calls may be numbered.

But I’d like to put something else out there as having numbered days. Several somethings, indeed several hundred somethings: Canberra drivers addicted to social media.

Being on the radio five afternoons a week doesn’t generally leave me a lot of time behind the wheel during the day, but a series of appointments far and wide across the ACT in the last couple of weeks meant I had to do a lot of driving. Maybe I’m slow to realise this, but some of the stuff happening on our roads is frightening.

Next time you’re stopped at a red light, cast an eye around at the vehicles nearby. I’ll almost guarantee you’ll see more than one driver with their eyes looking at a phone in their lap. If not that, then you may see someone casting furtive glances around for nearby police cars while holding their phone to their ear as surreptitiously as they can.

These behaviours are illegal. There are fines for it (if you get caught) but in the end, generally the worst that happens if done in a stationary vehicle is that traffic is held up because the driver is distracted and reacts a few seconds late to the light going green.

Worse, and increasingly common, is the driver on a multi-lane road wobbling in and occasionally out of their lane. In the past we would have assumed drunkeness. Today I’d suggest it’s more likely to be a driver texting (or possibly browsing the web) while holding the phone on their steering wheel. I’ve seen three of those this week alone.

Sadly, it doesn’t end there. In the past fortnight I’ve seen drivers taking photos or video while behind the wheel. I suppose we must be thankful that smart phones, even in the hands of dumb users, have autofocus on their cameras.

But the coup de grace came just the night before I sat down to write this week’s missive. Heading north on the Tuggeranong Parkway, I noticed the car in front of me had what seemed to be very bright dashboard illumination. Or perhaps, I thought, it was a satnav device with the brightness turned up.

Then I overtook it. The driver, the front passenger and the two people in the back seat were watching a video. On a small screen seemingly attached to the windscreen. While doing 95km/h on the parkway!

I don’t know what the solution is. The behaviour has become endemic. Perhaps it’s time to adopt the advice from the old joke: “If you don’t like my driving, stay off the footpath” as our pathways soon may be the only place to drive free from the menace of distracted drivers.

Ironic footnote: Shortly after this article was penned, the NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust confirmed the final distribution of its funds as it was wound up. It doesn’t take a trust to research how dangerous these behaviours are, but they still shouldn’t happen!

 Chris Coleman presents “Canberra Live” on 2CC, 3pm-6pm, every weekday.