Cell Phone Ban While Driving Gets Big Push

(CBS)  A new report out Tuesday finds that one out of four crashes is caused by a "cell phone driver" - someone who could be holding the phone or using a hands-free device. Both are equally distracting, experts say.

Joe Teater would have been a freshman in college had a 20-year-old woman talking on her cell phone not driven through a red light six years ago and killed him.

"We lost Joe as a result of a phone call and you think about that today and it just seems so senseless," Teater's father, David, said.

Hoping to educate drivers about just how dangerous it is to talk - and text - behind the wheel, Tuesday the Teaters and others who lost loved ones in cell phone crashes are establishing a national advocacy group modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Their group is called Focus Driven.

According to statistics, crashes caused by drivers using cell phones rose from 636,000 in 2003 to 1.6 million in 2008, CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace reports.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the group will be an "army of people" persuading people to put their phones away while driving. LaHood told CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday he will push for a nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving. Currently only six states have laws in place. "We are going to push very hard," he said.

Since MADD was created in 1980 to educate people about drinking and driving the number of drunk driving deaths dropped nearly 50 percent to under 12,000 in 2008, reports Wallace.

Hand-held or hands-free, using cell phones while driving, experts say, can be the equivalent of driving with a blood alcohol level of .08 - the threshold of the legal limit."

Distracted driving advocates point to GPS technologies which can stop people from making and receiving calls or sending texts (the only exception is calls to 911).

"Ultimately, a day we envision a few years down the road is when we all look back and say, 'Remember those days when we used to talk on the cell phone while driving. Boy wasn't that a stupid thing to do'," Teater said.

Stupid indeed because when you are using a hand-held or even a hand-free cell phone, you are four times more likely to crash, Wallace reports. When you are texting, dialing or e-mailing, you are 23 time as likely to crash.

[RayHenke]

I wrote a scientific review article on this subject back in 2006 describing the epidemiological and controlled experimental studies demonstrating that BOTH driving under the influence of handheld and hands-free cell phone conversation results in DUI level driving impairment, a 4 fold increased likelihood that the driver will cause an accident. http://www.motorcyclists-against-dumb-drivers.com/cell-phones-and-dui-drunk-driving.html The powerful distraction is not the result of holding the phone, rather it is the effect of diversion of driver attention to the give and take of the conversation away from the visual tasks essential for safe driving.

[Phil_Waste]

Cell Phone Fix

How many times have you avoided a near accident because someone was talking or texting on their cell phone while driving and damn near killed you or your family? How many times has it been you talking or texting and nearly losing control of your vehicle?

Many cities, counties and states are passing laws against talking and texting while driving but does it really solve the problem? People are dying; men, women and children are losing their lives daily because of the actions of careless cell phone users. We can, however, fix the phones at the manufacturing level so they won't work while moving. Yes, I'm saying force the cell phone manufactures to make a simple change in cell phone software to connect the built-in GPS to shut off the phone when the cell phone is moving over 10 miles per hour.

Hands free phones built into cars would be exempt and could still be used while moving. No laws, no tickets, no cheating, no distraction, no ignoring safety. Problem solved, lives saved and yes a few people inconvenienced, but hey, too bad, pull over if it is that important and let the rest of us drive on our merry way.

In the last year there has been a 28% increase in auto accidents directly related to cell phone use while driving. How many deaths, injuries, property damage must occur before the cell phone companies fix the problem? Make the software change and the deaths would stop.

[belindar1]

It is time to stop this. What fool text while driving?

[belindar1]

junesdeath777 why don't you volunteer then?

[junesdeath777]

**** em,,, we need more death on the road,, we are over populated ,,, some people need to die,,, if i am one of them so be it.

[QuietOne402]

A headset is NOT safe - when your mind is focused on conversation, things on the road DON'T register in your brain - that's Distracted Driving. TV shows put phone users thru obstacle courses for dramatic effect but damage is done on I-95 at 75mph. Update your thinking or update your organ donor card.

[MATCR]

Yes, the cell phones that you old, fine, ban them. But the hands free? OK, you're having a conversation with someone on the hands free. Your hands are on the wheel, you are looking forward, you see the traffic lights and follow directions. "so you're back, how was the trip..... yeah, mom's ok, she went to the doctor.....yeah....oh, but that was no surprise, they just tax us more every year.....oh yes, we got the invitation.....yeah, I think i'll get back to bowling next year.....the kids are....." So this group wants to probibit this too? Well, then, you can have that EXACT same conversation with someone in your car. Guess we should ban talking to people in the car. People listen to the radio, sing to the songs while driving (and NO, I'm not endorsing those that are hopping around in there seats kind of and making all the facial expressions that go with the song when done on stage), but just singing. Or how about the news comes on and says your taxes are going up, no one is in the car, you mumble, "what else is new."

Guess radios need to be banned, and while you might be able to tell passengers not to talk in the car, well, what do you do when you are taking mom to the doctor and mom has dementia, mom does not understand don't talk to you. So, no more taking mom to the doctor. Your child isn't going to understand not to talk to you, so, they might as well ban children in the car. How you get the baby home from the hospital, hmmmm. And you are taking a co-worker home never before done. They tell you when you get in the car how to get to their house. "get off the highway, take a right, go two blocks and take a right onto Union Rd, then you want to go straight til you can't anymore, that will be Comment Ave, take a right and then at the next light take a left onto Logged St. Just around the bend you'll see Submit Lane, take a right and my house is the second on the left." Now remember, your passngers are prohibited from talking to you while in the car, so all instructions must be given before you start driving. HA HA HA Or are you going to pull over to the curb after each and every turn, so your passenger can tell you how far to go.

Ya know, while I don't advocate the phones you have to hold and dial, the rest of the stuff, talking to people, listening to the radio, there are next to no accidents. Sure, don't have that radio turned up so loud you can't hear the sirens. And when talking to passengers, don't be looking at them like if they were in your living room.

[fuzzwuzz2]

The owning and operating a Motor Vehicle is a positive
responsibility and every owner and operator has to be
taught this, including the operation and upkeep of the vehicle,
the vehicle does not KILL , the operator does, my thought is
Keep Both hands on the steering wheel and concentrate on
the operation of said vehicle at ALL times .

Fuzzwuzz2
retired Police Chief

[markfromhere]

The many comments from people who say hands free is just as dangerous only proves how people are sheep that believe anything they read or hear. Those studies that show things like that can be rigged anyway the people doing them want to. They don't even have to rig them, they can just say they found whatever during their study. They prove nothing. And believe me, they want to find what they want to believe because there is money to be made by faking stuff. Why don't all the lemmings run off the cliff with all the other easily brainwashed and weak-minded people who believe whatever pablum is shoved down their throats??

[markfromhere]

And another thing is nobody can prove that a person having an accident while using a cell phone that the cell phone usage was the cause of the accident. They might have run the red light or whatever anyway. I have run a few red lights in my life and I was not talking on a cell phone in any of the cases. I simply had my head up my posterior and was distracted by whatever else there is that can distract a person. Hell, a break up with a girlfriend can distract me beyond comprehension. I also was using a ( flipping through software pages ) GPS once and when I looked up I was starting to drift toward the center lane. Outlaw GPS/navigation too then. I can remember drifting a few times while tuning radios or using cassettes/CD/Minidisks too. Let's outlaw all entertainment devices while were at it!! Let's outlaw life, what the heck. Everyone will be required to commit suicide. Then we can all "rest" easly!! The hard way......