The issue here is not cell phones, it paying attention. Talking and looking at the person next to you is just as dangerous as being a cell phone Zombie. As I listened to today’s broadcast, just as listeners were being asked to comment on the issue, I watched the idiot in front of me turn the wrong way on a one way street. You guessed it, cell phone firmly implanted in his ear. Realizing his faux pau he then immediately tried to back up almost hitting me, still glued to his stupid cell phone. Had he been paying attention he could have avoided almost having two accidents within a 10 second time span. In my humble opinion it should be one of the questions on your application for car insurance. “Do you smoke, have you ever received a DUI, do you own a cell phone?” It’s time for folks to hang up and drive.
watched a lady talking on a cell phone during a recent snowstorm.she was all over the road.and did not even look in here mirrors before changing lanes.she was so caught up in her conversation she did not realize she allmost killed the couple beside her.to dangerous.I caught myself not paying attention while talking on the cell.now i will pull over in a gas station to return the call if it that important.you can not put a price on life
Stipulation of the law to ban use of phone while driving may be targeting a selected population. Might those who are driving while on the phone also be those who are somewhat incognizant or shirking of their responsibility of the driving situation - otherwise they would not be engaged in such behavior? Such a population might also include those with obsessive behavior associated with use of the phone. The physician who professes to be required to engage his practice while driving, shares, as I see, the commonality of individual superior importance. Analysis of the situation could indicate that a ban on driving while on the phone may yet be the logical reaction, maybe if not the the solution.
Not that those who listen to Car Talk and have taken the time to respond to this issue could be taken as a representative sample of drivers, but, I see that I am in overwhelming agreement with this survey. I had coincidentally had the thought recently that driving while on the phone would fall in the category of diver impairment or impaired driving. Ironically amusing it can be living in the future. Like a question 50 years ago on a psychological test for measuring creative thinking: "Write a paragraph on what comes to mind from this question: What if phone-booths had wheels and could be driven?? could one in the past seriously have imagined such a problem?
I am one of the lucky ones who has stories about how many times someone lost in a cell phone conversation ALMOST killed him. There needs to be a change of consciousness about this reckless behavior. I remember when I was in college, a 150 mile drive home began by going into a deli and getting a submarine sandwich and a sixer. That was pretty much standard operating procedure back then and thank God they cracked down. The cell phone of the '09’s is the sixer of the '60’s. It should be banned in cars!
Re: Driving Drunk=Driving with a cell phone. I wonder… what about using those buttons for adjusting the heating or cooling for the vehicle, changing the radio station, or using the great new direction systems. Are we to assume that the only thing that a driver can do is drive? If that is true then perhaps we should eliminate controls beyond phone usage. Perhaps navigational systems, radios, climate control, cruise control, or any other system designed to accompany a driver would be considered too much of a distraction. If a person cannot safely talk on a phone while driving, perhaps a driver should not talk with other passengers while driving. I believe that there are many who should not have a driver’s license currently and that we should examine the driving habits of people in general. The most obvious driving criteria that is currently overlooked is the space that should kept from the vehicle ahead. My opinion is simply this; allow more space in front, give time to react, as taught in driving class and many, very many accidents will be avoided.
In 1997 FOR MOTORCYCLISTS there were 20.99 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. In 2004 it was 39.89 deaths per million vehicle miles traveled. I have to speculate on how many of these additional deaths were due to cell phones. I use motorcyclists because they have not been able to benefit from the air bags, crumple zones, etc., that modern cars have. BTW, one of my Scrabble-playing acquaintances is adamantly opposed to these laws–they take away her freedom–to run me over, I guess. I asked her whether she thought we should have the freedom to drive drunk. The answer was no, but she still maintained her position.
Scrabbler
This whole issue reminds me of the 55mph speed limit. Statistically it was proven to save lives. In in the west and out of the major metropolitan areas it became a major waste of time and frankly it was ignored until we admitted to ourselves it was a waste of taxpayer money. I know I just recently a stretch of road has been designated to have a speed limit of 80mph. I whole heartedly agree that a hands free device should be required while driving. And Texting while driving is absolutely stupid. I saw a woman texting in a car going 60mph in California traffic. I consider that reckless driving and she should have been pulled over and arrested. But talking on the phone when traffic conditions allow is like having your kids in the car. When traffic gets bad, you get them to be quiet and let you concentrate. At other times they are just as much of a distraction as any telephone call. The next study will tell us that we can’t talk to the person in the passenger seat while driving.
This happened to me when I was talking with a human passenger in the car; we got on the highway for what was a 1.5 hr ride and what seemed about 5 minutes later she pointed out “oh there’s our exit that we’re passing,” with the next one about 15 miles further on.
What do we say about driving while talking with passengers (incl. kids in the backseat, who aren’t driver-trained and can’t predict & identify other road hazards easily)?
What about kids in the backseat, who have no training or experience in road hazard identification?
The state laws that I am most familiar with (Arizona and Tennessee), do not exempt emergency responders from prima facie traffic regulations entirely. The way the laws are written in those states, emergency responders are subject to all traffic regulations but may exceed the posted speed limit or proceed through a red light only if it can be done safely and due care is exercised. Additionally, the vehicle must be a state registered emergency vehicle equipped with a siren, gong or whistle in addition to a forward facing red light. When responding to an emergency call, the equipment must be in operation. There have been cases where emergency responders were found liable due to failure to exercise due care in the operation of their vehicle.
As for the child bleeding to death in the ER, that’s nothing but a legal red herring. You might save one life, but that does not legally justify endangering other road users. Frankly I don’t care whether someone is a Doctor, EMT, whatever…if you want to drive, don’t expect me to feel that you deserve any special treatment. I’ve had Doctors pull that excuse all the time at the courthouse. I don’t care if you’re on call or whatever-local court rules prohibit cell phone usage in certain areas of the courthouse and you’re no different. Application of cell phone usage laws must be equal and it is becoming increasingly clear that cell phones are a major problem.
Back in the sixties all our fathers were able to yell at all us kids to knock it off with the fighting in the backseat while having an argument with all our mothers about being lost and stopping for directions, travelling about 75 mph down the interstate along with thousands of other families going through the same ordeal during summer vacation.
It’s past time for a total ban. No conversation is worth even a failure to signal or a close call. CarTalk was out in front on this and could do a great service if they were to act as a repository for facts and information such as this - http://www.isp.state.il.us/media/pressdetails.cfm?ID=452
Illinois State Police spend their lives as professional drivers and are subject to limitations. Drivers are not allowed to watch TV or drink while driving and cellphone usage is little different. The technology has been allowed to be adopted and used beyond the capability of the human brain. I would be one of the last to advocate Any further government intrusion into our lives but I think this has to be done. If the call is important enough to take, pull over and talk. It’s not difficult.
I have to agree with you when you put it that way. Anyone can see that it’s the conversation that is potentially lethal, not the one-handed driving (let’s outlaw coffee drinking while we’re at it). It’s hard to regulate stupidity.
The physician’s response is more an indictment of the US health care “system” than a cogent defense of cell phones. If the doc believes that in some clinical situation a patient’s life hangs on someone’s ability to get in touch with a particular physician at that very instant, God help us all! Because in that case the medical “system” surely can’t.
At this point there is a substantial literature demonstrating that hands-free cell phones are NOT safer than hand-held phones, and showing that any kind of cell-phone conversation is more dangerous than many other driver distractions, including conversing with passengers or listening to the radio. Promoting the use of hands-free devices serves only to create the ILLUSION of safety, not actual safety.
Strayer and colleagues and the University of Utah have studied this problem in depth. You can read many of their studies at http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/ I also would refer you to a famous study that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine (13 Feb 1997) in which researchers used telephone company billing records to study motor vehicle mishaps in Toronto. They wrote: “We found that using a cellular telephone was associated with a risk of having a motor vehicle collision that was about four times as high as that among the same drivers when they were not using their cellular telephones. This relative risk is similar to the hazard associated with driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit… We observed no safety advantage to hands-free as compared with held-held telephones… [O]ur data do not support the policy followed in some countries of restricting hand-held cellular telephones but not those that leave the hands free.” Full text of this article is available free of charge at the journal’s website.
A similar real-world study was conducted in Australia, with similar results – using a hands-free phone was no safer than a hand-held phone. This study appeared in BMJ in 2005, and full text is available free of charge at the journal’s website.
In the past year I have seen two cars drive through red lights while their drivers were talking on cell phones, and just yesterday I saw a cell-phone driver narrowly avoid a rear-end collision when he failed to see the car ahead of him stop for a pedestrian until the last moment. A law won’t prevent everyone from using cell phones in the car, but it would make law-abiding people think twice before doing it.
Okay to ban Cell Phones, but also ticket #1) women putting on makeup while driving! or #2) a car with two or more women or men gabbing away about this or that. Talking on the phone with an earbud is not any more dangerous than #2, and #1 is much more dangerous.
I’m always wondering when I hear discussions on this topic why there is no compare/contrast cell conversations with conversations with a passenger, or other distractions. For example, the state trooper that was killed near here recently when a mother was delivering fast food to her children in the rear seat. At speed. On the freeway. Did I miss something?
Before the law is passed it would be helpful if a qualitity believable video was shown that demonstrated how we really can’t multi task successfully, especially when driving. We don’t multi task we switch task. Most of us will do things to save our own hides if we’re convinced of what we’ve been shown or taught. So before passing the law let’s try to show ourselves just how much at risk we really are.
Another thought:
If you were on the surgeon’s operating table tomorrow morning you sure wouldn’t want him to be on the cell phone in the middle of that cutting proceedure.
We are going through this same nonsense in the state of Washington. Already we are required to use a free hands system. 4% of accidents are caused by cell phone use. If the average person is involved in 5 to 10 accidents in a lifetime, it would take several lifetimes for one of us to actually be involved in an accident caused by cell phone use. Contrast that to the percentage of people that actually use the cell phone while driving and you will find that you will encumber the vast majority of people to do relatively no good. Sounds like your typical big government loving over reacting liberal knee jerk decision to me.