Crash renews cell phone doubts // Singer recovering, but worries
about driving distraction arise
Patriot News
* 03/11/99
The Harrisburg Patriot
(Copyright 1999)
* Country music giant George Jones, it now appears, will recover
from serious injuries he received Saturday when he crashed his
sport-utility vehicle into a bridge abutment. The future of yet
another American legend, the car-mounted cellular telephone, is still
in question.
At the time of the accident, Jones was using his cell phone to
chat with his stepdaughter. He lost control and collided with the
bridge, sustaining injuries that left him in critical condition for
at least 24 hours.
It has not been determined yet if using the cell phone while
driving was a contributing factor to Jones' crash, but the accident
does focus attention on growing concerns about the safety of phoning
and driving.
In fact, a 1997 study cited by The New England Journal of Medicine
found that drivers using a cellular phone were four times as likely
to be in a motor vehicle collision than those who did not.
Even more startling was the finding that the risk of using a cell
phone while driving is about on par with that of driving under the
influence when the blood-alcohol level is at the legal limit.
This research and the Jones accident have raised anew questions
about the safety, and ultimately, the legality of using the cell
phone while operating a motor vehicle.
On first examination, this appears a no-brainer. The comparison
with drunken driving clearly weighs in favor of
prohibiting cell phone use while driving. Who wants to risk being on
the highway with more than 50 million cell-phone chatters whose
chances of wrecking are four times greater than if they hang up and
pay attention?
But the reality is not so simple. The cellular phone is here to
stay -- in the briefcase, in the shopping cart and in the car. It is
one in a long series of liberating modes of communications for the
20th century. What's more, cellular phones have proved their worth
in reporting accidents and other highway problems to authorities.
This is another problem to assign to the Bureau of Common Sense.
Because data show that most accidents involving cell phone use occur
within five minutes of making a call, safety experts feel that the
process of dialing and initiating contact are crucial. To this
degree, it is best to pull over the to the side of the road to make
the call.
The New England Journal of Medicine study also recommends keeping
calls short, interrupting conversations when necessary and taking
extra precautions at night or in inclement weather. In short, the
individual is as much as factor in these developments as is the cell
phone itself.
Perhaps highway safety and communications experts can come to some
terms in the future on reducing the risk factor, but for now it's
more or less up to the person behind the wheel to keep in mind that
the No. 1 task at hand is driving -- not phoning.
