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 I hate cell phones. If I had my way, I’d melt them all down and create a working life size replica of the Death Star. (or an army of At-Ats, I’m not sure yet) 

 

At the very least I’d like to see some more laws coming out restricting their use under certain circumstances. But it’s not really the cell phone that’s the problem; it’s the people that use them.

 I don’t mind they use them while walking down the street or in the privacy of their own homes, but I do mind when they use them in a place where it affects me.  They break them out when they are driving, or when they’re in the movie theater, or standing in line at the coffee shop, or in an elevator, or at a restaurant, or in the bathroom, or riding their bike.  The list goes on.  But as much as I can’t stand the douche with the phone up to his ear at the hockey game looking for the camera that’s broadcasting him back to his moronic buddies at home (who were obviously too cheap to get tickets) or the jerk in line at Dunkin Donuts that’s thinks his conversation is so damn important everyone in the place is required to listen, I’ll focus my attention on one type of cell user that I really despise; The Driver. 

When I decided to write about cell use while driving, I had this grand idea that somewhere along the line it would actually inform someone of how deadly it can be and they would change their ways.  This grandiose idea morphed into how all of  my super awesome readers (both of them) would start thinking of their own cell use while behind the wheel, and alter their behavior because I informed them of how dangerous it could be!   Yeah, I know, pretty arrogant.  I blame my parents. 

But then it dawned on me.  The people causing all of this destruction while driving are so self centered they will never look to themselves as the root cause of their accidents.  Heck, if they really thought for an instant they were the problem, they would have altered their cell use without me, or any statistic in the world, having to tell them so.  So arrogance works both ways I see.  I blame their parents.

I don’t know about you, but I don't need statistics to tell me that cell phone use in the car is a dangerous thing.  I know because I drive differently if I’m talking on the phone.  There is a certain level of attention one has to give in order to effectively communicate with the party on the other end of the line. As a result, the attention you give them, is directly proportional to the amount taken away from the art of driving a vehicle. And the hands free crap makes no difference either, because it isn’t just about the dialing or the scrolling through of a phone book.  It’s about the conversation and what it takes for you to be able to participate in it when only half of you know whats going on in front of you. .  

Think about it.  People on the other end of the phone always believe you are giving them 100% of your attention. Why wouldn’t they? You did pick up their call after all. And isn’t answering the phone virtually an agreement that you are ready and able to hold a conversation?   You bet it is.  You never pick up the phone and instantly say “talking on the phone is causing me to shift my attention from the importance of driving my car, please call back”   Additionally, your caller never changes their delivery of the conversation based on the level of complexity the road ahead of you brings because they cant see it!!!  Of course they are going to continue to talk as if you weren’t driving. And as a result, when presented with a change in the road, it forces drivers to shift their level of concentration to whatever they feel is more important at the time. Either to the conversation because they didn’t feel the change in the road required more attention, or to the road to avoid what may have been a sticky situation.  Bad drivers shift to the caller, and usually end up in accidents. Good drivers will shift attention to the road, and ask the caller to repeat what was said because something took their attention away.  Great drivers wouldn’t be on the phone in the first place. 

Now don’t forget what this newfangled cell phone technology has brought us. While its great we can get an important phone call whenever it needs to reach us, its allowed us to change the definition of what we deem “important”.   People now tend to have conversations in the car that would never actually take place in a car if cell phones weren't available. Remember now, we're not talking to just our friends and families we’ve invited into the car anymore.  We are talking to our bosses, our financial advisers, our doctors, the guy working on the house, our real estate agents, our kids' teachers , our physicians, and our life coaches all while driving in traffic down the highway or in town @ 10mph past the speed limit. (Because sadly, no one does the speed limit anymore) These conversations typically require responses far different than the ones you would give to a family member or friend too and thus require much greater and controlled thought. After all, a friend or family member isn’t going to fire you, or tell you, you’ve only two months to live.

 

In the past, conversations like this happened either in places where a one on one type of conversation could be had - like a private office perhaps or an office cubicle. But now they are happening in a place where it’s truly impossible to give it the 100% attention it deserves - in front of the ever changing landscape of the road.  

For those of you that think cell use is equally distracting as say eating or drinking in a car, let me ask you this.   Do those actions require you to listen, interpret, formulate, phrase, and deliver a response to your hamburger or double latte? I’m not saying they can’t be distracting in the hands of the wrong driver, (which if you are trying to make that argument, you probably are THAT driver) but certainly not to the same level of being on the phone. (Although putting on makeup or reading the newspaper ranks right up there)

 Now a days I do my best to avoid having conversations on the phone while driving. I’ll either ignore the phone and  call back when I’ve reached my destination or I’ll answer and tell them there is a time better suited for us to have our conversation.  But that’s me.  Sadly the self centered jerks that think they NEED to be on the phone at that moment will never alter behavior.  We all know who they are too.  They are the ones that jump out of a side street to cut you off, even though you are the only car coming at them.  They are the ones that won’t turn on red, even though it was safe to do so. Or worse, they are the ones that will turn on red when there is clearly a sign that denotes the legality of such a move.  They are also the ones that travel 10 mph slower than the posted speed limit because they were too busy to see the sign.  We all know who they are.  And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then maybe you’re one of the cell users that’s causing all these problems.  Take a look on your commute in.  How many people did you see on the phone?  Of those people that performed some stupid traffic stunt, how many of them had mobile units up to or in their ears?  I’m betting close to half. 

As I wrap this up,  I thought my blog here would have been groundbreaking  by providing some useful data for the folks that needed to see cold hard facts regarding these dangers. As strange as it is to say, I’m quite happy I can return that silver shovel with the big red bow on it, because there is no ground to break.  There is a ton of information online about how awful cell phone use while driving can be.  Let take a look at some of it.

 http://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cell-phone/statistics.html
(About 6,000 deaths and a half a million injuries are caused by distracted drivers every year.)

http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/06075/671034-294.stm
(Cell phone users in the United States have increased from 34 million a decade ago to more than 203 million...and thats data from 2006!!)

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/mobile-statistics-2011-growth-of-mobile/
(70% of the worlds population now have a mobile phone, that’s over 5 billion mobile subscribers, and in places like the US, it’s 9 in 10 people. With children now more likely to own a mobile phone than a book, with 85% of kids owning a phone as to 73% having books!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/technology/17distracted.html?_r=1
(“I ran into a truck,” Ms. Briggs said."It was parked in a driveway." She was walking by the way....)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/california-cellphone-ban_n_1322726.html
(California bans cell phone use while driving. Guess what happens? "The number of deaths among drivers using hand-held phones fell from 100 to 53 during that period, while the number of injuries dropped from 7,720 to 3,862.")

http://seriousaccidents.com/blog/accident-prevention/ten-worst-cell-phone-related-injuries-deaths/
("In September of 2008, a California Metrolink train carrying commuters through the San Fernando Valley collided with a freight train, killing 25 people and injuring an additional 135 passengers. The engineer responsible for directing the train was texting with a teenage train enthusiast mere seconds before the collision" And this only came in at number 8.....)

http://text-neck.com (doesn’t it alarm anyone else that we spend so much time on the phone we are physically injuring ourselves to the point we actually have a name for the condition?)

If you read this and did not think you are the problem, take a look at all those statistics and all that information and then ask yourself if you feel lucky. (Well do ya, punk?)   If you haven’t had that accident with the phone yet, then consider yourself damn lucky, punk.  Put the phone down and stay safe.  All of those statistics above thought they could multitask just fine too. 

 If you are one that’s had an accident because you were on the phone and you haven’t changed your behavior, what’s it going to take?