Today I write this post with a serious tone - no humorous anecdotes, no personal tales - just the sobering facts about a very deadly habit for the majority of drivers. Do you talk on your cell phone (hand-held or hands-free) while driving? Do you text while driving? Do you Tweet or Facebook while driving? Do you read or answer your emails while driving? If you do, you are not alone. A Nationwide Insurance public opinion poll found that 81 percent of people admit they text or talk on the phone while they drive. America has an addiction to cell phones, especially those "smart phones" that can do anything, anytime, anywhere - including your car. You may think that you are a great driver with a stellar record or that you are a mom who needs to multitask while driving carpool for hours each day or that it is only illegal if you are caught using your phone while driving (in the few states with hand-held cell phone bans) or maybe you are stuck in perpetual adolescence and believe that nothing bad will happen to you. The truth of the matter is, if you use a cell phone for any reason while driving, you are a distracted driver. Same goes for more than three-quarters of the people driving in their cars. around you and your family. However this problem is not limited to just motorists in cars, but also train engineers, semi-truck drivers, and pedestrians too. Put this all together and you have a recipe for disaster.
The National Safety Council cited a 2003 study from the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis that estimated cell-phone use by drivers contributes to 6 percent of crashes, resulting in 330,000 injuries, 12,000 of them serious and 2,600 of them fatal, each year. It also estimated the annual financial cost of cell-phone-related crashes at $43 billion. As horrible as these statistics are, this problem has only worsened. More current trends show that nearly 500,000 people are injured and 6,000 are killed each year because drivers are distracted by using cell phones - either talking, texting and e-mailing.
Driving and cell phone use is not a new problem. Cell phones have been around for decades. In fact, in the late 1980's and early 1990's, cell phones were actually a life-saving device. Quick calls to emergency rescue teams meant early treatment for injured and ill people. However by the mid 1990's, cell phone use exploded in popularity, and this life-saving effect was offset by the number of accidents and injuries caused by drivers using a cell phone. Back in 1997, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that cell phone use while driving is extremely dangerous and puts drivers at a four times greater risk for a crash. This habit is compared to drunk driving in terms of risk. A recent study published in the Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society evaluated drivers under various conditions in a driving simulator. The test subjects were placed in one of four scenarios; one with no distractions, one using a hand-held cell phone, one using a hands-free cell phone, and lastly, one while intoxicated to the 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level. Although it was a small study, it demonstrated that drivers on a cell phone drove more slowly, braked more slowly and were more likely to crash. In fact, almost 10% of the drivers "collided" into the pace car while on cell phones. None of the drunken drivers crashed. So if research has shown us that driving while using a cell phone is as risky or possibly more than drunk driving, why haven't our state governments enacted a complete ban on their usage while behind the wheel. Drunk driving is against the law in all 50 states. Six states have a ban on hand-held devices but hands-free devices are still a distraction to all drivers, according to a University of Utah study. If you want to know more about the cell phone laws in your state, please visit http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html.
Now that you know the depth and breadth of this deadly addiction that you or someone you know may have, what are you going to do about it? The first step to changing any behavior is awareness. I hope that by reading this post, I have raised your awareness and that you will do your part to spread the word to others. We can not rely on the state legislation's agenda to make this a priority. We, as citizens, need to make this change come about ourselves. Yesterday, on The Oprah Show, Oprah spoke with guests who had lost a loved one in a cell phone related accident. She also featured a new organization, FocusDriven: Advocates for Cell-Free Driving. Similar to MADD, they are raising awareness of this all too tragic issue. If you watched it, I hope you took the poignant message to heart and pledged to make your car A No-Phone Zone. I did! If you missed it, then please visit http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/Americas-New-Deadly-Obsession for more details and to make the No Phone Zone Pledge.
"I pledge to make my car a No Phone Zone. Beginning right now, I will do my part to help put an end to distracted driving by not texting or using my phone while I am driving. I will ask other drivers I know to do the same. I pledge to make a difference."
I promise you it will make you smarter than your "smart" phone.
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