by Shanna Riley

Created on: April 01, 2008

Every day on the way to and from work more than half of the people I see are talking and driving. And they are the ones swerving, getting dangerously close to other vehicles or the shoulder, hitting their brakes for no apparent reason, and driving slowly and obviously not paying attention. I've had people on the phone pull out in front of me because they weren't paying attention. I've had them slam on their brakes because they missed their turn. I've seen them swerve all over the road because they are concentrating more on the conversation going on than on their driving.

"A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver" study by the Social Science Research Network says that:

"We used a high-fidelity driving simulator to compare the performance of cell-phone drivers with drivers who were legally intoxicated from ethanol. When drivers were conversing on either a hand-held or hands-free cell-phone, their braking reactions were delayed and they were involved in more traffic accidents than when they were not conversing on the cell phone. By contrast, when drivers were legally intoxicated they exhibited a more aggressive driving style, following closer to the vehicle immediately in front of them and applying more force while braking. When controlling for driving conditions and time on task, cell-phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers. The results have implications for legislation addressing driver distraction caused by cell phone conversations."

So, as I've said before, if drunk drivers are dangerous and therefore it is illegal to drive drunk - then WHY is it legal to drive and talk when it is PROVEN to be as or more dangerous?

ConsumerReports.org says that:

"The suspicion about cell phones and cars caught fire exactly five years ago, with a study published in February 1997 in "The New England Journal of Medicine." That study, conducted in Toronto, Ontario, looked at 699 drivers who owned cell phones and had been in collisions. It concluded that when a phone was used while driving, the risk of a collision was between 3 and 6.5 times higher than when a phone was not used. It also concluded that the relative risk was similar to that of driving with a blood-alcohol level at the legal limit, and that cell phones that allowed hands-free operation offered no safety advantage." -in Cell Phones and Driver Distraction 2/02

BankRate.com's Guide to Insurance states:

"The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis reported in December 2002 that cell

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