Quote:
Originally posted by CDSmith
Here's a BBC article on this --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1885775.stm
Here's another article --- http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/i...ce/cellphones/- Ninety-one percent of Americans believe driving while talking on a cell phone distracts drivers and increases the likelihood of an accident, according to a 2000 survey conducted by the Insurance Research Council.
- Talking on a cell phone while driving quadruples the chances of getting into a motor vehicle accident, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. This risk is similar to the hazard associated with drunk driving.
- Vehicle crashes account for 24 percent of workplace deaths, the highest single cause of on-the-job fatalities.
- According to the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, 6 percent of the auto accidents in the U.S. each year could be attributed to cell phone use, which works out to 2,600 fatalities and 330,000 injuries.
Obviously some people DO have the ability to drive safely while talking, but that isn't the issue. Some people also have an innate ability to drive well even while intoxicated. The problem is that out of say 1000 cellphone-using-drivers, MOST of them CAN'T drive properly, and obviously many of them are causing dammage and injuries. YOU might be mr A-one driver, but the idiot next to you isn't, so maybe rather than blaming the government for enacting such laws we might think about blaming the idiots who are causing these laws to be considered.
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CD, not that you should be taking what the "insurance information institute" says as unbiased fact but from the same page you'll find this:
In the United States, some 134.5 million people used cell phones in 2002, compared with approximately 4.3 million in 1990, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
If this number is factual, it makes the rest of the numbers suspect.
33 times the number of cellphones in use and yet auto accidents DROPPED.
Here's a theory:
the government never misses an opportunity to make money of the simple.
when the idiot does something on the road you notice he's an idiot. put a cell phone in the idiot's hand and you notice the phone, not the idiot.
Then the polotician says,"cellphones are dangerous" and the stupid say,"hey, he's right! I remember the guy with the cellphone cutting me off"
but hey, we live in a world of stupid people, thank god I can afford the ticket.
