Ban Cellphones for Teens while driving?

[Friendly Bear]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

I guess it would be about as easy to enforce as seatbelt laws, but would more likely be a "dog-pile" citation in the event the teen is stopped for another violation and the cop sees them on the phone or is in an accident whilst chatting away.

Cell phone USAGE should be a misdemeanor traffic violation while OPERATING a motor vehicle.  For everyone.

There is a mountain of scientific evidence that talking on a CELL PHONE causes a kind of tunnel vision by reducing the processing of peripheral vision input to the brain.

Your brain continually makes a judgment concerning input received from your five senses, with VISION normally given the most processing power.

However, when your brain thinks you need to concentrate on a phone conversation, then your auditory processing center gets the processing power.

Now, that change doesn't matter much when you're sitting at home or at the office in a chair.

It does matter driving a car.  It causes accidents every day, and it kills people.

If your cell phone rings while you are driving, just pull over, stop and answer the call, or immediately return the missed call.

[Rowdy]

quote:Originally posted by Friendly Bear

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

I guess it would be about as easy to enforce as seatbelt laws, but would more likely be a "dog-pile" citation in the event the teen is stopped for another violation and the cop sees them on the phone or is in an accident whilst chatting away.

Cell phone USAGE should be a misdemeanor traffic violation while OPERATING a motor vehicle.  For everyone.

There is a mountain of scientific evidence that talking on a CELL PHONE causes a kind of tunnel vision by reducing the processing of peripheral vision input to the brain.

Your brain continually makes a judgment concerning input received from your five senses, with VISION normally given the most processing power.

However, when your brain thinks you need to concentrate on a phone conversation, then your auditory processing center gets the processing power.

Now, that change doesn't matter much when you're sitting at home or at the office in a chair.

It does matter driving a car.  It causes accidents every day, and it kills people.

If your cell phone rings while you are driving, just pull over, stop and answer the call, or immediately return the missed call.

Perhaps this is wrong, but when I normally use my blinkers for other drivers, I dont for those who are gabbing on the phone and not paying attention to anyone else.  Why should I go through the trouble of respecting the gabber who isnt paying attention anyway?  After all, they  are the ones who think they are the only ones on the road.

[Noodlez]

Have any studies been done of the effects of talking to a passenger in the car? It seems if it's the act of conversation that is the cause of the problem then talking to a passenger would have the same effect or more so due to eye contact at points and hand movements.
Lets just ban all private transportation and go to public transit. That solves the distractions while driving and the huge gas price problem in one go.

[izmophonik]

I have a permanent back injury because of an adult that was on the cell phone and slammed into the back of me at over 50 MPH.  I don't care how much you love your kids, parents etc.. If you really love them you wouldn't let them talk while driving.  It is dangerous for anyone.  The person that hit me was middle aged.  This problem isn't exclusive to teens although I can understand how teens can be more prone to it given the fact that they have less driving experience.  I say no talking no matter what. (my .02)

[Rowdy]

with inflation it's now .03