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CELL PHONES SHOULD NOT BE BANNED WHILE DRIVING: A NEW KIND OF PASSENGER

Cell phones have become nearly as much a part of popular culture as the television. Because something is popular does not make it immediately suspect. To ban cell phones while driving can be an idea lumped into a type of cultural wisdom that bears repeating: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

While, like television, allowing driver's eyes to be distracted from the road is unsafe by the very nature of that media, hand held cell phones that might require hand\ eye use and co-ordination could be considered comparable. Handheld cell phones can be considered as dangerous to road safety as tv.However voice activated and Blue Tooth technology have provided methods by which cell phone use can be accommodated safely.

CELL PHONES VS. PASSENGERS

No one suggests that drivers should ban passengers from their car. No one suggests that because babies or children in car seats may be demanding, adults can have access to automobiles but children must be banned due to driver distraction, passing food back and forth. baby bottles, water, or toys .

When a call comes over my Blue Tooth, the audio comes through my car speaker system. When my kids call me while I am driving, I talk with them in the same way I do when they accompany me as a passenger. Truth told, the audio conversation is less distracting than if they were riding with me in some instances. This is particularly true of one daughter who goes apoplectic if an insect comes in the window. Even as an adult, she begins to panic and simultaneously flailing around. She raises her voice in panic tones while requiring me as driver to also assess and assist her with the culprits whereabouts on the dashboard or window. On Blue Tooth, she is far less distracting.

SELF-DISCIPLINE AND DISCIPLINING PASSENGERS

The beauty of banning cell phone use in cars is the ability of drivers and passengers to be free of the moment-to-moment on-call phenomenon cell phones present depending on lifestyle. While in the car, a ban on cell phone use would be the perfect excuse. Unless both driver and passenger bans are put on cell phone use in a car, there is no guarantee that Mom won't get a call for Dad and hand over the phone to Dad while he's driving anyway. Does Dad choose to incite both mother and child by refusing the call while stopped in traffic or slinking passed a construction zone project?

Instead, reason demands that Mom push the button on the Blue Tooth and Dad gets the call on speaker phone. Everyone is happy and like with any passenger's conversation with the driver, distraction is just a part of multi-tasking drivers do while navigating their commute anyway.

Learn more about this author, Judy Joyce.
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