Cellphone Driving
The Dangers of Using a Cell Phone While Driving
Statistics connecting cell phone usage with dangerous driving have becoming increasingly readily available. Evidence suggests that cell phones cause drivers to become distracted, to move their eyes off the road and, ultimately, to endanger their lives and the lives of other motorists. With the advent of texting and emailing by smartphone, these risks are even greater. In spite of this, the United States remains resistant to impose federal legislation that would make it illegal, nationwide, to use a cell phone while driving. Given the evidence relating cell phone use and dangerous driving, there is a strong imperative for the development and passage of distracted driving laws on the national level.
The strongest argument in favor of such a law is the clear and irrefutable evidence denoting the danger of driving while using a cell phone. In fact, an article by Richtel (2009) equates driving while...
According to Richtel, a person using a cell phone is four times more likely to cause an accident, a risk index equivalent to that of a person with a .08 blood alcohol level. Richtel further reports that driving while using a cell phone has been the attributed cause to an estimated 2600 traffic deaths and 330,000 accidents overall annually. (Richtel, p. 1)
In spite of these figures, Richtel reports that "the federal government warns against talking on a cellphone while driving, but no state legislature has banned it. This year, state legislators introduced about 170 bills to address distracted driving, but passed fewer than 10." (p. 1) This denotes that the federal government is fully apprised of the dangers of cell phone usage while driving but that few in its lawmaking bodies are prepared to take the potentially unpopular steps of turning this acknowledgement into binding legislation.
However, according to a recent…
