Hand Up the Cell Phone While Driving
Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 320
Currently, the legal trend of banning the use of hand-held
phones while driving is spreading. Currently, Connecticut ,
New Jersey , New York ,
Washington D.C., and the Virgin
Islands have passed laws banning the devices. California
and Washington State have as well, with laws going into
effect on July 1. The devices have also been banned in a number of individual
cities and Utah and New Hampshire have included them under their
distracted driving laws.
The use of hand-held cell phones by novice drivers has been
limited in 17 states and D.C. and school bus drivers specifically are banned
from using them in 15 states and D.C., except in the case of emergency.
Alaska , Minnesota ,
New Jersey , and Washington State
have also found it necessary to ban text-messaging while driving and about a
dozen others are considering the same ban.
According to studies, there is a significant increase in the
risk of an accident if the driver is on the phone.
The increase has been found to range from a factor of 1.3
times higher (found in Virginia Tech’s “100-car study” in which researchers
video taped the actions of 100 drivers) to four times higher (found in Canada
and Australia through research of the incidents leading to traffic personal
injuries) to as much as five times high in simulator studies performed at the
University of Utah, where researchers say the effect is equal to that of
driving drunk.
Text-messaging seems to be an even greater distraction. In
the 100-car study, the risk factor increased to 2.8 and in the Utah study, it increased
to 8.3.