Multi-tasking is not merit, it is a serious menace  

The buzz of a mosquito is annoying, but perhaps it is also useful. The sound at least warns us to take evasive action to avoid becoming an unwilling blood donor.

The buzz also offers us some peace of mind, as traditional wisdom says if you can hear a mozzie it won’t make you sick… because the only species that transmits malaria – the female Anopheles – is silent.  

I’ve tried to research the science of that no-buzz legend (as the basis of a motoring article!), but sadly it seems to be a myth. All mosquitos buzz whenever they fly, because one edge of their wings brushes against an adjacent “comb”.    There are no exceptions. But perhaps there is still a way of knowing, by sound, whether the buzz is just irritating or actually dangerous, as the females’ buzzes have a higher pitch than the males’. 

Could we learn to discern the difference? Again, sadly not. Because you’ll probably never hear a male mosquito buzz… unless you lie very still in a flower bed. Males feed on pollen. Only females “bite” and suck blood because they need extra dietary ingredients to make eggs. 

So bang goes my idea for a motoring column about silent-but-deadly, by comparing malarial mosquitos with electric cars.  Vehicles without noisy engines could present an additional safety hazard… because other road users can’t hear them coming. 

Many of the early testers of electric cars reported that they frequently “surprised” pedestrians. Never mind, seeing and hearing is still a worthy topic for a motoring article.  And a chance to voice growing concern that  pedestrians, cyclists and even other motorists – well enough endowed with eyes and ears – need to make more focused use of them when negotiating traffic. 

Using a mobile phone – an audio-visual activity – is rightly prohibited when driving. Should it not also be an offence while walking on a pavement or crossing the street on foot? Any pedestrian making or answering a call, or tapping in or reading a text, should surely be required to come to a halt, and preferably get out of everyone else’s way.  

There are also more and more people walking along with white wires coming out of their ears, listening to music (or whatever) on gadgets. This is both generally distracting and renders them stone deaf to other sounds which, on a busy street, they need to be listening to.  

These issues warrant serious attention in their own right. They also serve to illustrate a point that is woefully absent from road safety policy: Motor vehicles and their drivers are not the only cause (and perhaps not even the main cause) of traffic accidents.  

In a busy modern world, all road designers, makers and users share equal responsibility to be competent, attentive, careful and responsible. Laws and penalties should reflect that. Multi-tasking – behind the wheel, in the saddle or on foot… or indeed in any other circumstance of life – is not a clever attribute. 

It is a selfish, usually inefficient, sometimes rude and often dangerous menace. Like the silence of  Anopheles, which means “no value” (aka “useless”) in Greek, the merits of multi-tasking are a myth.