VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Upon arriving here, I was relieved to have a break from the barrage of cell-phone and landline calls, e-mails, instant messages, tweets, texts and the like in my daily life. However, I failed to escape what has become one of my biggest pet peeves — the widespread, inappropriate use of hand-held electronic devices, notably cell phones.

In recent weeks, troublemakers included: an agitated man on a cell phone whose driving antics caused a near-miss with my car in heavy traffic; a pedestrian so furiously texting that she careened into my parked car as I was opening the driver’s door, leaving me with a bruised knee; and an unattended child who ran through a greeting-card shop as he fixated on an electronic game, with predictable results.

Similar incidents began happening here almost immediately. The first involved a woman descending from the upper floors of a high-rise hotel who began to mutter and then complain aloud every time the elevator stopped to admit more passengers. The crowding restricted her ability to text. Another happened on the stairs near my seat at a men’s 10,000-meter speedskating Olympic event. A child absorbed in an electronic, hand-held device crashed into my leg, nearly sending me much closer to the competition than I desired. In yet another instance, a jogging-and-texting man wearing a headset barely avoided a collision with strollers about to board a water taxi to Granville Island.

What to do about this growing problem, which I suspect is global? Oprah Winfrey has her finger on part of the answer with her “No Phone Zone Pledge,” which addresses the dangers of texting and calling when operating a motor vehicle. Texting is a particular hazard in such circumstances, because it leaves one impaired in a manner similar to that of a person who has consumed several alcoholic drinks. There is simply no excuse for such recklessness.

Moreover, a message is rarely so important that it demands an immediate response. Winfrey, to her credit, relentlessly campaigns on this issue and often extracts a no-phone pledge from guests on her television show, as she recently did with actor Morgan Freeman. I hope each one of those pledges inspires a thousand viewers to make their own commitments.

Unfortunately, not every driver will be willing to stop behaving badly on a voluntary basis. In those cases, the only recourse may be through laws and penalties.

And what about similarly distracted offenders on foot, skates, bicycles, skateboards — the list goes on? I would support a general no-phone zone in public — enforced by fines — when there is a chance a person could walk, jog or otherwise run into someone else.

What is wrong with requiring people to stop to make/receive a cell-phone call or type/read a text message? It would be both safer and courteous. If the mania for hand-held electronic devices affected only the people using them, there would be no reason for me or anyone else to complain. But when such behavior increasingly interferes with the lives of others — and threatens their physical well-being — the time has come for new rules and punishments.