Use of Cellular Phones While Driving

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Use of Cellular Phones While Driving

Cellular phone is a wireless and hand-held device that is well known to the public. It is very common to have a cellular phone now a day since cell phone was introduced to the United States in 1983. According to the wireless industryfs trade association, Cellular Communications & Internet Association, there are over 135 million subscribers in the United States at the time of this writing. It estimates that there will be over 200 million cellular phone subscribers in world wide by the year of 2005.

The use of cellular phone has skyrocketed since low-price phones and services plans became widely available to the general public in the recent years. As cellular phone is getting more and more popular among us, the way of how people communicate has been changed quite a bit. This increase of cell phone users has been accompanied by an increase in the number of people talking on the phone concurrently with driving. For instance, according to David Strayer and William Johnston, recent surveys indicate that 85% of cell phone owners use their phone at least occasionally while driving, and 27% report using their phones on half of their trips.

Is it dangerous to talk on a cellular phone when someone is driving? This issue is still being debated all over the world. We all have seen people talking on their cell phone and driving at the same time. Can they really do that talking in the phone and being concentrated on driving? Can a phone conversation be dangerous while driving? There are some governments looking at this safety problem and some of governments even have set some restrictions to use cell phone as driving. According to Tenisha Mercer,

Brooklyn Heights, Ohio, was the fi...

... middle of paper ...

... his/her hands widely, s/he is not drunk but talking on a cell phone.

l You never take your eyes off the road to dial or answer your cellular phone

when driving.

l Donft talk on your cellular phone when you are on the road unless there is

an emergency occurred. Turn off your phone when you are in your car if it is

possible.

References:

David L. Strayer and William A. Johnston (2001). Driven to Distraction: Dual-Task Studies of Simulated Driving and Conversing on a Cellular Telephone Psychological Science, Nov2001, Vol. 12 Issue 6, p462

http://www.womanmotorist.com/ftrs/tm-cell-phones-and-driving-2k1-01.shtml 2/19/2003

http://www.mrtraffic.com/cellular.htm 2/19/2003

http://www.wave-guide.org/archives/emf-l/Jul2000/Use-of-cellular-phone-while-driving--

a-columnist--eats-crow--.html

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