Germans Ban Talking & Driving

Noting that talking on a cellphone while driving is almost as dangerous as drinking while driving, the Germans outlawed the practice.

"Both hands on the wheel, eyes on the street -- that's the only way to increase safety," Transport Minister Reinhard Klimmt said in an interview to be published Sunday in Bild am Sonntag.

Klimmt told a newspaper that the government plans to fine drivers $32 for talking on a cell phone, unless they use a hands-free device like a speakerphone.

Officials said the law banning "handys," as cell phones are called in German, will take effect sometime next year.

A 1997 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that talking on a phone while driving quadrupled the risk of an accident and was almost as dangerous as being drunk behind the wheel.

Several other countries have banned the use of cell phones while driving. In the United States, the Cleveland suburb of Brooklyn, Ohio began fining drivers last month under a cell phone driving ordinance believed to be the first in the country.