Even those Bluetooth headsets raise the potential risk of an accident. Even though a person’s hands may be free of the cellular device, he or she is still being distracted by the conversation. Cell phone usage while driving causes 2,500 deaths and 330,000 injuries in the United States every year. People who drive while talking on a cell phone raise the risk of an accident or death. Recent studies show that a person driving while talking on a cell phone has less awareness of the road than a person who is driving drunk.
An increasing number of studies show that driving while talking on a cellphone can be dangerously distracting. Yet most states have not banned handheld phones, and most have not banned all drivers from using hands-free devices. Some say cellphone bans are simply not enforceable. Others argue that drivers do all sorts of distracting things while driving, like eating, arguing with kids in the back seat and listening to music so it makes little sense to outlaw one activity. According to the president of the National Safety Council “talking on a cellphone while driving makes a person four times more likely to be in a crash, which has a much higher risk than most other distracting activities, it’s the cellphone conversation that diverts people’s attention from the road” (Froetscher 2).
Putting not only their lives in danger, but oncoming traffic as well that may be carrying valuable contents like children in the vehicle. According to AAA foundations for traffic safety there are the following facts about distracted driving. Drivers spend more than half their time behind the wheel engaged in distracted behavior. More than 8,000 crashes a day are caused by distracted driving, the use of a cell phone while driving quadruples the risk of an accident occurring. 87% of drivers (including myself), agree with laws put into place against reading, typing, or texting while driving behind the wheel.
Studies show that a cell phone put drivers at a four time greater risk of a crush. Despite of a danger, people still use cell phones because they want to be always available and keep in touch with other people. Also, they think that hand-free set is safe because they can drive using two hands. Moreover, they use arguments that cell phones are necessary in emergency situations. It has been argued that using cell phones while driving can make drive slower, overtake less often, and reach their destination at a slower pace compared to non-users.
There is another reason to prohibit using the cell in car is distracting people from driving. In this day there are more than 1.35 billion mobile phones, and in some countries more than half of the population own these devices. In the united states there are more than 224 million people used wireless phone while driving in 2006, when we compared that with approximately 4.3 million in 1990, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. there is a danger associated with driving and using a cell-phone. Even though, people know those affects, they continue to use it.
Majority of these people have no regard of the safety of others around them. Laws banning cell-phone usage have been approved in some states, cities and municipalities, but not all. When we leave our home we take our keys, wallet, purse, and foremost our phones. Cell phones are the perfect way to stay connected with others while providing the user with a sense of security. Kingston k stated, “Mobiles are now every one’s first choice gadget, either an elderly person or a younger one.” (Kingston, K 2014).
All one needs is a smartphone, such as an iPhone or an Android, and they can fulfill all of their daily tasks from the touch of the same button. Although such technology has made the lives of Americans much more productive, cellphone technology has made people more detached from society and less aware of their surroundings. Cellphones have given Americans a false sense of reality in which the average person believes that multitasking while using a mobile phone is an effective use of one’s time. If Americans can better distinguish when it is appropriate to use their cellphones, users can prevent themselves from making mistakes, whether they are small or large, due to inattentiveness. This is not a problem of cellular phone technology; it is one of not knowing when it is appropriate to engage in cellphone use.
No matter how careful a driver you may be, when you do something else while driving, whether its drinking coffee, listening to music, scanning the GPS, or making a phone call, you endanger the people around you, and including yourself, because you are distracted from your driving. An accident needs only a couple microseconds to occur. Even though no state can ban people for changing radio stations or applying makeup while driving, all states can, and should, make it illegal to drive while talking on a cellular phone. Since the rise of popularity of cellphones in the past years, the number of accidents caused by people talking on their mobile devices has also increased. Whether they were in an argument, receiving a message, or simply dialing a number, they were momentarily distracted from the task of driving.
To engage ourselves in a construcive work, we have started a campaign to spread awareness about accidents related to cell phones and driving. In the reference material attached to this letter, you can see various newspapers cuttings and photographs that highlight the gravity of the situation. In the year 2008 alone, nearly 6,000 American residents lost their lives because of accidents related to a cell phone use while driving. Moreover, car crashes and texting via cell phones while driving have been related more closely in recent years. Cell phones usage while driving has been rated to be far more dangerous than drunk driving, which highlights the dangers of using cell phones when we are commuting from one destination to the other.
The number of accidents that are cell phone related have made cell phone use while driving illegal. Some places have enacted laws that allow the use of hands free devices and banned the use of handheld devices. Hands free devices come in the use of Bluetooth that are placed in or on the ear. Newer model vehicles also have the capability to use Bluetooth capability. Car manufacturers have taken heed to the need of limiting cell phone use while driving.