Safety First: Ban Handheld Cell Phones

Taylor Effling
6/29/07

Are you a cell phone junkie who is a danger to the rest of us on our public roads? Talking on a handheld cell phone while driving is a threat to public safety and it should be banned. When your full attention is not on driving, you are putting yourself, your car occupants, and those individuals in your path in a situation of unnecessary risk.

In general, people realize they are assuming a risk when talking on the cell while driving even without reading the warnings provided in the literature that most of us never take out of the box. As pointed out on the Congressional Quarterly’s Web site, there have been few statistics compiled to show the extent to which cell phones have attributed to accidents, but this does not mean they are not causing accidents. The study published in 1999 by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found there was a "crash risk factor to using cell phones" of " 450 to 1,000 fatalities each year" (542). The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's findings predict that there are "between 300,000 and 650,000 "other" crashes due to cell phone use" (542). I would bet that a couple of us know someone who has been involved in an accident-- even if it was only a minor fender-bender-- that could be attributed to cell phone use while driving. I agree with the Congressional Quarterly's comment that the public becomes outraged when a factory defect of a vehicle, which the driver had no control over, causes automobile deaths. The public should be just as upset over deaths caused by driving while using a cell phone, which is a controllable risk factor. Why do so many Americans seem willing to participate in risky behaviors that are a danger to themselves and others, I could list several of these, but those are for another time and discussion? Is it fair to put other drivers, who maybe unfortunate enough to encounter you on the road, at risk of death because of the inconvenience to you of pulling over and stopping before making or answering a call.

Hahn and Tetlock give a different estimate of "about 10,000 serious accidents and 100 traffic fatalities", which according to their information would be "less than 1% of the annual total number of accidents (544). Based on these statistics they compiled [they give no sources for their statistics] it is their opinion that banning cell phone use while driving would be too expensive. Hahn and Tetlock claim there would be "billions" lost if people could not do business using a phone from their car (544). A ban would not limit them from conducting business on a cell phone while in a car, it would merely require that the car be stopped. An arguement could be made that by stopping before using the cell phone a person could conduct their phone business more effectively and timely as their attention would not be divided between driving and conducting business, thus saving money and time. How many lives saved would it take to be a cost effective proposition to ban using handheld cell phones when driving?

Mark Burris of the University of South Florida's Center for Urban Transportation Research reported that when Japan banned handheld phones while driving " accidents caused by the use of mobile phones dropped by 75% the next month" (542). America should join Japan and the other 14 countries who have banned handheld phone use while driving. A ban of handheld cell phone use while driving could save your life or that of a loved one.