I think that overall people just need to start paying more attention to their driving than who their talking to. I still feel mandatory headsets would be a big decrease in the number of accidents. Texting while driving is just being an idiot. I can barely eat a burger! And don't even attempt Taco Bell that crap will get everywhere!
From a Feb 28th, 2008 article from the New Jersey Star-Ledger:
In New Jersey, police reported 3,580 accidents statewide involving cell phones in 2006, the only year for which a full accounting is available, according to data collected by the Department of Transportation.
The number of crashes involving hands-free (1,854) and hand-held (1,726) devices were about evenly split [with a slight edge going to hands-free devices, likely due to more people using them]. Of the 11 fatal crashes among the total, six involved drivers using hand-held devices and five involved drivers using hands-free ones.
New Jersey police began noting cell phone usage on accident reports in 2001 and began drawing the distinction between hand-held and hands-free phones in 2006. The data for 2007 is not yet complete, the DOT said.
The 2006 New Jersey numbers are consistent with the results of peer-reviewed studies into the subject.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, for instance, studied hundreds of crashes between 2002 and 2004 to evaluate the danger of cell phone use. The results, published in 2005 in the British Medical Journal, showed the use of cell phones by drivers increased the risk of a crash fourfold. They also showed there was virtually no difference in the crash rate of those using hand-held phones and those using hands-free ones.
And researchers from the University of Utah found in a 2006 study that the impairment associated with talking on a cell phone while driving can be as significant as the impairment caused by alcohol. The effect was the same with hands-free phones as it was with hand-held, according to the study, which was published in the journal Human Factors.
Beginning [March 1, 2008], police in New Jersey will have the authority to stop and fine motorists for using hand-held cell phones while they drive, but the state's own statistics and a growing body of academic research suggest the change won't make it any safer to drive here. The revised law makes using a hand-held cell phone a primary offense, but allows drivers to talk as long as they use a hands-free device. Under the law, drivers caught talking or texting on a hand-held cell phone can be hit with $100 fine and a $250 surcharge. (emphasis mine)
[Munched] Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester), the primary sponsor of the cell phone law that takes effect Saturday, said there was never any serious consideration given to prohibiting hands-free talking as the bill made its way through the Legislature. "That genie's out of the bottle," Moriarty said. "There's a real productivity issue." Moriarty said he believes responsible drivers who switch to hands-free devices can safely do business over the phone while they drive and that the work they do is important to the American economy.
The upside of hands-free devices is
not that it puts both hands back on the wheel to make people
think they're driving safer, but that it frees up at least one hand for coffee, the other for a burger, so you can drive, talk, eat and drink all at the same time. I crack myself up.
