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Nine states prohibit all drivers from handheld phones, including the Virgin Islands, and thirty states bar cell phones from amateur drivers. Interestingly, no state prevents all cell phone usage. Yet in an important distinction, thirty-five states have officially cracked down on a potentially riskier cellular activity in motorists — texting.
Indeed, a separation between general cell phone use and texting should be made, as the latter activity actually poses a much more detrimental threat to automotive safety at large. Car and Driver conducted an experiment to pinpoint exactly how sending a text effect a motorist’s ability to remain focused and alert.
Many found their findings eye-boggling: whereas driving drunk caused drivers to brake about 4 feet longer than when sober, sending a text messaged added a startling 70 feet to the standard time it takes to brake a vehicle.
While a speakerphone may begin to remedy the effects of talking on a cell phone, there is no solid or trustworthy solution to text messaging during the driving experience. Most data assessing the effects of distracted driving fails to provide a specific breakdown as to the percentage of drivers who succumbed to an ill-timed text. Yet many states and official organizations are not biding their time for more precise data to emerge. The launch to exterminate text messaging has ignited to full effect.
In 2011, the State of New York cracked down notoriously hard on texting drivers, where the activity is fully banned, and punished guilty parties with an inundation of nearly 120,000 tickets throughout the year.
AT&T has taken a noble stance with its “It Can Wait” campaign, compelling cell phone users to respect mobile technology by not accessing it when driving. A lengthy documentary entitled “The Last Text” accompanies the movement, highlighting true cases of individuals whose lives were permanently altered (for the worse) by texting.
Most emphatically of all, Oprah Winfrey has tossed her hat into the no-text-behind-the-wheel ring; her website implores visitors to sign the “No Phone Zone Pledge” and completely abstain from cell phone use once the keys enter the ignition.
So the country has seemingly united in a stance against cell phone use, texting, and falling prey to accident-provoking distracted driving. But those who recall the general and wide-sweeping definition of “distracted driving” have complained that cell phones’ danger has not yet been specified with enough exactitude.
The NTSB has conceded that laws and pledges alone will not sufficiently ebb cell phones’ use, nor are they substitutes for thorough education for drivers. Phone activity and texting’s subsequent potential to cause disasters on the road requires exhaustive educational schemes, a la “It Can Wait,” to help improve drivers’ respect for the road.