The National Safety Council released a white paper today describing the effects of being on a cell phone while driving. Even hands free talking has risks. Most people are distracted and engaged with the conversation and have the tendency to not see everything around them, which the Council estimates half of what is going on outside the car is missed.
There are over 280 million wireless subscribers in the U.S.and at any given time about 11 percent or 30 million drivers are using their cell phone. Alarming Statistic: One in Four car crashes are the result of using a cell phone. More and more states are realizing the seriousness of this and many have passed laws restricing the use of hand-held cell phone talking and texting. But maybe that isn't enough, because as the report details one person involved in a fatal accident was talking hands free, but failed to see the car she hit.
Driver distractions have joined alcohol and speeding as leading factors in fatal and serious injury crashes. The National Safety Council estimates 25 percent of all crashes in 2008 involved talking on cell phones – accounting for 1.4 million crashes and 645,000 injuries that year.
The seriousness of this is due to multi- tasking. Our brains our not constructed in such a way that we are able to perform two tasks at the same time. The brain handles each task separately, switching between two tasks, but not at the same time. Therefore, we mistakenly believe that we can multi-task when in fact we cannot. And that is the reason any type of cell phone activity is a danger while driving.
To read more, you can find the white paper by here: NSC Cell Phone White Paper
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