Chatty Drivers and Your Safety -Those folks could run you off the road.You're cruising down a city street when a car swerves across two lanes, cutting you off and narrowly missing your front bumper. The driver slows to make a turn and you glance over angrily and see--what? If you answered, "Some idiot chattering on a cell phone," you're not alone. Cell phones are being blamed for causing accidents, as well as for just plain rude driving.
Shut Up and Drive
In many places, anger about turning cars into mobile phone booths has gone from abstract fuming to concrete action. Brooklyn, Ohio, received national publicity for being one of the first cities to ban cell phone use while driving, but that may just be the beginning of a national movement. In September, Richard Jackson, commissioner of New York's Department of Motor Vehicles, called for a study on the relationship between cell phone use and traffic accidents. New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission has already passed a rule prohibiting taxi drivers from using cell phones while carrying passengers. And according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 15 states have proposed bills to restrict cell phone use in motor vehicles.
Naturally, cell phone service providers are nervous. You'd be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn't have at least a pamphlet on driving safety. "We as an industry are accountable for [drivers' safety]," says Lisa Ihde, a spokesperson for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. "We want to make sure that wireless subscribers are educated about simple [safety] steps." Not surprisingly, Ihde raises doubts about the efficacy of phone bans. "There's no way that you can legislate behavior in a car. Besides, police officers know that they can pull over and ticket anyone who's being a hazard on the road."
Scientific Proof
There are two significant research reports that implicate cell phones as traffic safety hazards. In February 1997, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of one study. In November of that same year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a similar study. Both studies found that the distraction caused by using a cell phone can increase the risk of crashing. Although that may sound like an open-and-shut case, it isn't.
The NHTSA study also pointed out that anything that distracts the driver of a vehicle--from fiddling with the radio to conversing with a passenger--increases the chance of a crash, and there's no data establishing how much more distracting a cell phone is than any other kind of activity. In 1998, the California Highway Patrol conducted its own survey of the available research and concluded that "none of the researchers were able to make the statement that cellular telephone use causes traffic collisions." Further, the CHP informally surveyed 3,000 of its officers, and 70 percent felt that cell phones were equally or less distracting than other driver diversions.
Much of the argument about cell phone use in cars is virtually a repeat of the debate that occurred when radios first appeared in automobiles. Initially condemned as dangerous distractions, they were eventually accepted by the public. Today, telling someone that his or her car radio is a driving hazard would probably earn you an odd look. It is not unreasonable to expect the outrage to fade as cell phone use in cars becomes more commonplace.
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