Cellphones and driving
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
On the news recently, they were talking about cellphones and driving. What caught my attention was that the news was about the hands free cellphones. Supposedly, you can get in more accidents with a hands free vs. the regular old cellphones. Now I really find this hard to believe!
Think about this! A hands free device allows us to talk and pay attention to the road. We can drive with both hands, and can be ready to react within seconds. With a regular cell phone, we have a hand on the phone, and a hand on the wheel. It is more difficult to manuver and respond to a situation. So, I find it very difficult to believe all of this hype!
Hands free cell phones allows us to talk and maintain two hands on the wheel. It could be no more of a distraction to us, than holding a conversation with someone else in the car. Often when holding a conversation with someone else, you turn your head to look at the person. When talking on the hands free device, there is no need to turn your head to look at the person you are talking with.
We could go so far and say, we should not drive with our children, because we talk to them, and they are a distraction. Why limit it to children; how about any passengers that we talk or hold a conversation in the car. Or better yet, why put the radio on, because the music that we sing along with or listen to, is taking our concentration off the road.
I agree that driving and cellphones are a bad idea. Hands free cellphones should be considered a much safer device. I have carried on conversations while driving a distance with friends that have been in the car. I was able to watch traffic and react to situations in a safe manner. My conversation did not distract me to go from point A to point B safely. Personally, I think cellphones and driving are safe if they are hands free!