Safety Risks of Cell Phones and Driving

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Many find that banning the entire use of the cell phone while driving ridiculous though, and say that it impedes upon their civil rights as U.S. citizens. They also say that talking on the cell phone while driving is just the same as having a conversation with a passenger in their car and that the government will not ban people from having passengers in their cars so why should they ban talking on cell phones while driving. They also state that just because the laws are there it doesn’t prove anyone will follow them so why put them in place and stated that certain laws were put into place to prohibit driving while intoxicated and mandatory use of seatbelts while driving and yet, many do not mind those laws so why would they abide by this one. Some, like Saurabh Bhargava and Vicram Pathania, two Berkley graduate students, do not find the banning of cell phones while driving necessary and composed a study on cell phone use while driving and found no correlation between the two, stating “since 1993 the average amount of time a cell phone subscriber spends on calls rose from 140 minutes to 740 minutes per month and that forty percent of Americans use their phones while driving [and] reported that the number of fatal accidents has fallen or stayed flat in all states from 1987 to 2005 and during that period, the number of fatal crashes in seven states was also steady or down” (NEW YORK TIMES, 2007). The Insurance Loss Data Institute, HLDI, studied insurance claims before and after cell phone bans went into effect and found no deduction in car accidents. Adrian Lund, President of IIHS and HLDI, states “the key finding is that crashes aren’t going down where handheld use has been banned” and goes on to say “ this finding doesn’t [arg... ... middle of paper ... ...hile driving. Boy wasn’t that a stupid thing to do’,” said David Teater who lost his son, Joe Teater, six years ago to a distracted driver talking on her cell phone. Joe Teater would be entering into college right now if it were not for the few careless seconds of a distracted driver (CBS NEWS, 2010). I believe that whatever the government decides to do it will be in the best interest of the people. I know many may not agree with bans against cell phone use while driving and say that the government is trying to take away our civil rights but I disagree. We did this to ourselves. We have proven to the government how incompetent and irresponsible we can be with no concern for safety for ourselves or for others. I believe the government is doing what they feel is necessary to do for the public’s general health and overall well-being. One death is one too many.

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