Junes Wrote:
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>
> If its any consolation, one of your major gripes
> has been dealt with in the General Assembly.
> Drivers may no longer use hand held cell phones.
>
>
> I'd like to see the ear buds banned too, but this
> seems to be the best concession the GA can make.
> The hand helds are definitely a distraction and
> hinder physical control of the vehicle. The
> "conversation" however can be equally distracting.
> I've seen more than a few "bud" cell phone
> drivers become quite animated as they carry on a
> coversation - so much so that they lose focus of
> their primary responsibility - operating a motor
> vehicle
http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/cellphones/
Motorists who use cellphones while driving are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves, according to a study of drivers in Perth, Australia, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The results, published in July 2005, suggest that banning hand-held phone use will not necessarily improve safety if drivers simply switch to hand-free phones. The study found that injury crash risk didn't vary with type of phone.
Many studies have shown that using hand-held cellphones while driving can constitute a hazardous distraction. However, the theory that hands-free sets are safer has been challenged by the findings of several studies. A study from researchers at the University of Utah, published in the summer 2006 issue of Human Factors, the quarterly journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, concludes that talking on a cellphone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk, even if the phone is a hands-free model. An earlier study by researchers at the university found that motorists who talked on hands-free cellphones were 18 percent slower in braking and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked.