Email this postShut Up and Drive
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One thing today's column doesn't get into is all of the research that says that having a hands-free phone doesn't eliminate the danger of driving while yakking.
Just being on the phone is risky if you're behind the wheel.
But I don't think you'll see any legislation to make up hang up altogether. Josh Shapiro says he's trying to make talking on the phone while driving safer, not illegal.
The research that finds that any talking on the phone fractures our attention comes from many university studies cited in this Los Angeles Times blog. (California went to a hands-free law as of July 1.)
The scariest result comes from Carnegie-Mellon U., whose scientists found that a cell in a car - held or hands-free - saps about 37 percent of our brain power.
Which would be a problem if we use just 10 percent of our brains anyway. But that's bogus.
Automobiles stopped being transportation devices a long time ago. They're rolling entertainment centers. It's not enough that we're going someplace, we have to get there in the ultimate comfort - like a little rolling living room. Reclining heated seats, a heated steering wheel, 2 cup holders per seat (how much can we drink?), satellite radio, DVD players in the back seat for our ADD kids, headphone jacks for their iPods, a thermometer to tell us how hot or cold it is outside - supposedly to make us feel better about being in the car. With all the junk the auto makers put in to pamper us, we still feel like talking to people on the phone. Some folks are just never happy.
It's gotten so bad that we have to make laws to prohibit the very behavior that we are being told we deserve. Figure that out in your spare time. Most drivers aren't good enough at it to give up 37% of their working brainpower.
It's getting to the point where we'll need a designated driver even if we're not drunk.
We have seatbelts and airbags and crumplezones you name it and its there for our safety. someone should invent a new device that jams cel phones unless the car is in park. No more vans full of kids with the driver chatting away about nothing in particular and risking all our lives.BTW the technology for this is already available
http://www.phonejammer.com/
The auto industry is smart. aprezi, all of these creature comforts are incorporated into cars because the way things are going a lot of us are going to be living in them. When they engineer how to relieve oneself while driving then you'll understand the concept.
Didn't Burt Reynolds rig up something like that using a muffler in "Starting Over."
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