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Cleaning up a few ‘toilet paper’ issues |
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Written by TODD WHITCOMBE
Citizen columnist
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Sunday, 20 July 2008 |
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TODD WHITCOMBE
The term is one that we coined back in high school. One of my buddies ran for student council on the promise that he would get us some decent toilet paper in the washrooms.
He won by a landslide.
Toilet paper issues are not the big issues of the day. Not climate change or the failure of the U.S. housing market or the war in Afghanistan. Toilet paper issues are the little irritants in life that really don't take much to fix but once fixed, make life a little better.
Like cell phones and cars. A recent poll in this paper had some 90 per cent of respondents in favour of banning the use of cell phones while driving. I must admit that I've seen fewer people doing it recently. I saw one middle aged man pull off the road a little while ago to answer his phone. Way to go!
But you still see the occasional person trying to do too many things at once. Like the woman that was talking on her cell phone and trying to deal with a cup of coffee while driving the other day, who came very close to running down some kids in a crosswalk. Obviously she was trying to do one task too many. Or maybe two too many.
So, when are we going to see some legislation on this issue? When are we going to see cell phone use by a driver in a moving vehicle banned?
I mean, if we can ban smoking in cars with young children, surely it is not that much more complicated to bring in legislation that says no driving and talking on a hand held cell phone.
And speaking of driving, it strikes me that one of the things that the government could do to help with the move to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles would be to allow for transferable insurance. By this, I mean that if someone buys insurance for a truck, when they are not driving it, they should be able to use that insurance on a second vehicle such as a more fuel efficient car.
I don't know that this would make a huge difference in our collective carbon emissions but I do know people with trucks that they have to use for daily driving. They would like to buy a second vehicle - a more fuel efficient vehicle - for driving about town but one of the barriers is the cost of insuring a second vehicle. It is not much of a difference but it might help to shift the mix of cars on the road.
On a completely different topic, is everyone as fed up as I am with having to dial an area code for local calls? Sure, its only three more numbers but the whole thing is, well, ridiculous.
I mean, starting with 000-0000 and running to 999-9999, there are 10 million numbers. Sure, there are some that you would never assign as phone numbers - such as 000-0000 - but even if you eliminate a couple of million or so numbers from being eligible, that still gives you eight million numbers to play with.
British Columbia has two area codes (250 and the other one) giving us some 16 million useable phone numbers. With a population of only slightly more than four million, that's four numbers per person! Surely that is enough numbers. Why do we need another area code? And without another area code, the need for everyone to use an area code on every phone call disappears.
The rationale given is that they need more numbers for cell phones. Are there really that many cell phones out there!?
Further, when I was a kid, I lived in Vancouver and had a phone number that began with 224. Turns out, in those days, if you only put four numbers into your phone, it assumed that you were calling the same exchange. To call my best friend, I just need to dial 5272. The equipment knew that I meant 224-5272.
So, why is it, that with all of the technological advances and sophisticated computer programs and electronic systems, we are now in a position where I have to put in 10 digits to call someone next door?
Shouldn't this be getting easier? I mean, if I only put in 562-2441, shouldn't the system understand that if I am calling from area code 250, that I want the 562-2441 that is in the same area code?
Changes that would make life a little better - like having high quality toilet paper.
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Footnote: It's great that things are slow enough in Victoria to allow Ministers to write Letters to the Editor, but to suggest that turning down the thermostat and throwing on an extra blanket is a response to the carbon tax, as Colin Hansen recently did, is something akin to Marie Antoinette declaring "Let them eat cake!". And we all know what happened to her!
Dr. Todd Whitcombe is a professor at UNBC and a politically active member of the community. His column appears Mondays. E-mail:
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 September 2008 )
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Not included in Mr. Whitcombe's list of devices consuming phone numbers is a fax machine. These still chew up quite a chunk of numbers even though e-mail has essentially rendered this technology moot for most communication.
The CRTC is currently auctioning off 105 Mhz of new cellular spectrum. 40 Mhz of this dedicated to new cellular providers other than the usual three players in Canada (who are bidding for the other 65 Mghz). This will mean a number of new providers in the cellular business, and the market further saturated. We are also starting to see more often the "Disposable Cell Phone" or "burner" as they are sometimes called. These all need a number even if they are sitting on the shelf in a box, waiting for activation.
These days it's not hard to imagine a family of four with one land line and four cell phones. That's five numbers in one household.
But on the scale of importance it's really quite low on the radar, whether we dial 7 or 10 digits. As long as 911 stays 3 digits, I'm a happy person. This truly is a "toilet paper issue"