Don’t Drive With Your Brain All Cluttered
Sun Jan 18, 2009, 12:03 am | Leave Comment
New York Times online ran an article about “A Problem of the Brain, Not the Hands: Group Urges Phone Ban for Drivers” written by By Tara Parker-Pope, published on January 12, 2009. Laboratory experiments using simulators, real-world road studies and accident statistics all tell the story: drivers talking on a cellphone are four times as likely to have an accident as drivers who are not. That’s the same level of risk posed by a driver who is legally drunk.
Excerpts from the article
- In half a dozen states and many cities and counties, it is illegal to use a hand-held cellphone while driving – but perfectly all right to talk on a hands-free device.
- A new research now shows that a hands-free phone poses as much danger as a hand-held one. That means the problem is not your hands but your brain.
- Drivers may be distracted to the point that their engaged brains no longer process much of the information that falls on their retinas, which leads to slower reaction times and other driving problems.
- Studies show that cellphone conversations are highly distracting compared with other speaking and listening activities in the car.
- That means if you think that listening to talk radio or an audio book would degrade your driving skill; it does not.
- Nearly every driver with a passenger found the rest stop, in part because the passenger often acted as an extra set of eyes, alerting the driver to the approaching exit. But among those talking on the cellphone, half missed the exit.
Moral of the story
- A friend of mine talks all the time on a hand-held phone while driving. When I told him about the new research, he said “Well, I can’t help it. The problem is not in my hands.”
- Despite the overwhelming body of evidence that cellphone chat while driving is risky, the idea of a total ban is sure to be controversial.
- Albert Einstein once said “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?”
- I say “If cellphone chatting while driving is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is no chatting at all?”
- But still I would say “Cellphone chatting and driving don’t mix.”
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