Cellphones: Banned behind the wheel?

last updated 8 January 2015

You see them at every traffic light, “talking, texting, peering at a digital map, or playing Angry Birds,” said Doug Cox in CNN.com. At any given moment, 13.5 million American drivers are using a handheld cellphone, and distracted drivers cause thousands of accidents—with about 3,000 documented highway fatalities every year. That’s why the National Transportation Safety Board last week issued its most sweeping recommendation yet: a total ban on drivers using mobile phones, including “hands-free” devices. The public will scream, said The Philadelphia Inquirer in an editorial, but the NTSB’s wake-up call is necessary. Despite the obvious dangers, half of all drivers make and receive calls while behind the wheel, while one in five sends text messages. Studies show that drivers chatting on cellphones are as impaired as drunk drivers. Even hands-free devices aren’t safe, because drivers focus on the conversation, not the road.

You’ll have to tear my cellphone from “my cold, driving hands,” said Alexandra Petri in WashingtonPost.com. Like most young people, I find the idea of parting with my phone “physically impossible.” Besides, studies suggest that a backseat driver can be more distracting than a phone call. “And I don’t see them banning my mother.” The NTSB’s call for a total ban on cellphones “is an absurd overreaction to an unrelated problem,” said Dana Milbank in The Washington Post. The grisly 2010 crash in Missouri that spurred this advisory was caused by a teenager who was texting behind the wheel, which is already banned in 35 states and should be in 15 more. But the NTSB can’t prove that a hands-free cellphone conversation is any more distracting to drivers than listening to loud music, eating, or drinking a cup of coffee. To eliminate all distractions, why not also ban driving with bratty kids, cup holders, radios, and GPS devices?

In reality, no blanket ban on cellphone use would ever pass any legislature, said Steve Chapman in ChicagoTribune.com. So that puts the responsibility on all of us who drive. “Multitasking is a myth,” and the human brain is not wired to do two cognitively demanding things at once. If you think you can talk, text, tweet, or play Angry Birds while safely driving a 2-ton SUV, you are deluding yourself. So don’t wait for the government to pass laws to protect you from yourself, because “you might not live that long.”