Rich Roeper, in his Chicago Sun-Times column today condemns the law but joins me in admitting cell phones are a distraction when driving:
No matter how much we concentrate on concentrating -- no matter how many times we try to remind ourselves to pay attention to the road -- it is nearly impossible to perform both tasks at optimum levels simultaneously. Either you'll lose focus on your driving, or the person on the other end of the line will notice you're not really paying attention to the conversation.
Multi-tasking is an overused term and a mislabeled concept. We don't really do several things at once; we take small, successive bites out of many different projects in rapid succession.
There's no such thing as 200 percent concentration. If you're driving AND you're on the phone, something's got to give.
In a landmark 2001 study, researchers at the University of Utah found hands-free and hand-held cell phone users were equally impaired, "missing more traffic signals and reacting to signals more slowly than motorists who do not use cell phones." (The same study found that talking to a passenger, listening to music or following along with a book on tape did NOT impair driving.)
"Even when [drivers] are directing their gaze at objects in the driving environment, they fail to 'see' them because attention is directed elsewhere," according to the study. "Phone conversations impair driving performance by withdrawing attention from a visual scene, yielding a form of inattention blindness."
Driving and using the phone IS dangerous but I'm not sure what to do about it. Maybe the insurance companies will put the squeeze on with higher rates for frequent callers. I'm just not sure law enforcement can do much except maybe issue tickets after an accident involving a cell phone (but how would they know a phone was in use).
By the way, this new law is SO important that at least one state agency in Springfield issued an inter-office memo warning of the new law…200 miles away.
No comments:
Post a Comment