So I was sitting idle in my car in the cold rain on the freeway, not moving for 30 minutes, due to an accident, after a long day at work. I decided to call my good friend to catch up on life, since I hadn’t talked to him in a while, on my hand-held cell phone. This made me think about the subject in my header line.
Cell phone talking while driving: I thought,”I’m not REALLY driving; I’m just sitting here, so it’s okay(I think)”. A study I read this week stated that whether driving with a hands-free (Bluetooth)cell phone or using a conventional phone, an equal amount of attention and focus are lost to conversation, instead of on the road. Apparently, cell phone users are four times as likely to get into crashes. The only difference in using a hands-free phone, is one might look right and left more readily since it’s easier to do, and have an “extra” hand to use things like turn signals, wipers, lights, etc(my feeling is there might also be a lack of the additional stress of “being caught” talking on a hand-held phone, by a friendly law-enforcement officer). Some would say the law against using hand-held cell phones while driving taking effect June 10, 2010, is a “feel-good” law, as in “we’re trying to do SOMETHING to address the problem”.
*I think this latest gimmick tops everything: a mount for your i-pad on the steering wheel or dash(guaranteed not block your vision, of course!)so you can check e-mail, surf the web or watch movies while driving. Uh-huh…
I realized recently that whether riding my bicycle, motorcycle, or car, I subconsciously look immediately at drivers of other vehicles around me to see what they’re doing, using that to size up their attention span. That’s a sad change.
My goal? Minimum or zero cell phone time while driving, hands-free or not. I’m getting closer every week. I’m actually feeling kind of good about saying, “I didn’t answer because I was driving”.

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