Cell Phone Usage While Driving Could Cause Fatal Car Accidents

Late one night, around eleven o'clock, in May of 2007 I was driving home from my, then, fiancés' apartment. I was one of only four other cars on the road as I approached the seven lane toll plaza headed for the far right "SmartTag" lane. To the right of the "Smart Tag" lanes are the "exact change" lanes farther right are the "full service lanes." There were no other cars in my lane as I decelerated into the Smart Tag approach but there was a sport utility vehicle with out of state plates and a driver who was, rather animatedly, talking on his cell phone, ahead of me and to my right, in the exact change lane. This vehicle was, in fact already at the safety barricade and about three to four car lengths ahead of me.

This was the situation I was confronted with when the driver of the SUV suddenly and apparently decided that he did not have exact change and that the open Smart Tag lane would do for him to simply run right through. Without taking his ear off his cell phone or looking over his shoulder he made a ninety degree left hand turn, into my path, then a ninety degree right hand turn. By this time I was less than a car length a way and, even though I had been decelerating, I was still moving at around fifteen miles per hour and stopping my 2004 Dodge Dakota Quad cab that quickly was simply not an option. In a split second I had to decide what to do.

It was not really a choice. While personally I really didn't mind plowing into the side of Mr. IcantgetmyearoffthephonetowhatchwhereImgoing, he was protected, for staring at me out of the driver side rear window, of his SUV, was a young girl, maybe eight years old. I was not about to hit a child if there was any way I could ever avoid it. In that split second I cut into the crash barricade of the toll plaza while sounding my horn because I was not certain I was going to miss him.

When the world stopped spinning I found my truck, with the front end torn up, sitting up on the barricade. The SUV was stopped in the toll plaza, with the driver still on the phone. Several toll plaza workers were running towards the scene from the full service booths at the opposite end as I climbed out of my truck. The SUV drivers' wife poked him and said something to him angrily at which point he suddenly closed his phone and put it away. Then he rolled down his window and yelled, "Hey man, I'm sorry I cut you off!" I replied, "Sorry, doesn't fix my truck." At this point the gentleman took off at a high rate of speed. I managed to get a partial plate number and it was not enough to track him down.

Fortunately for me the toll workers had seen the accident and my skid marks clearly indicated that I had been properly approaching the booth and suddenly swerved. The police officer taking the report agreed that it was quite obvious I must have swerved for a reason, particularly with witnesses who saw the reason. The whole thing was written up as being caused by another vehicle which drove off and, in my state, this comes under "uninsured motorist" coverage. My truck was fixed and my insurance did not go up. By God's good grace, no one was hurt.

While I am certain none of you have ever done so, we have all seen people driving down the road, with a cell phone glued to their ear, yapping away to someone and paying absolutely no attention to the vehicle they are driving. This has gained national attention with state legislatures across the country either passing or attempting to pass laws concerning this issue.

People get worked up over this also and just do not see what they are doing wrong. About four years ago, while serving on a rescue squad, I responded to a call for a "10-50 with rollover." That is to say, a single car accident in which the vehicle had rolled over. When we arrived at the scene we found what had been a nice BMW, lying on its roof beside the road. The driver, a seventeen year old male was out of the vehicle and pacing up and down beside the road while, you guessed it, yapping on a cell phone with his soon to be ex-girlfriend, who was in the process of breaking up with him. Ahh, puppy love! Bystanders told us that he had been on the phone when he wrecked the car, when he crawled out of the car, and ever since. He was walking a little funny and favoring one side. There was a "significant mechanism of injury." This kid needed to be back-boarded, have his cervical spine immobilized and be transported to the ER to be checked out, there was a very good chance that he could have some damage.

He needed that but we could not get him off the cell phone. He would not respond to the Emergency Medical Services personnel or the fire personnel on scene. Anytime I, as the ranking officer on scene tried to speak with him, he would angrily wave me off and turn and walk the other way. After several minutes a police officer arrived on scene and approached the young man. The officer said to him, "Sir, we need to talk." Of course the young man responded by what had become his routine, an angry wave off and then turning to walk away. The police officers' response was simple and quick, he plucked the cell phone from the young mans hand, quickly told whoever was on the phone, "he'll cal you back" and clicked it closed. The young man turned around extremely angry, ready to explode and the officer simply told him, "Son, you have more important things to worry about right now."

The young mans reaction to this? Did he calm down and asses his situation, and then try to make the best of it he could? Let us just say, when his father go there, the kid was handcuffed to a stretcher, screaming bloody murder at everyone around him. Angry at the officer for not letting him finish his cell phone conversation!

Is there any wonder this accident happened in the first place? The kid never did see where he was doing anything wrong. The fact that he had just wrecked a very expensive piece of machinery, his daddy's BMW and done so while narrowly missing a parking lot full of other cars and people, was nowhere on his radar. The only thing that he was concerned with was his conversation on the telephone.

"Well, it's because he was seventeen," you might say, "he didn't know any better." Sorry, I have run many calls with older people who have done similar things. Just none quite as, shall we say, persistent, about it?

The "talking-on-cell-phone-while-driving" phenomenon crosses all age boundaries, all race boundaries, all socio-economic boundaries, and include both genders. Have I done it? Sadly, yes, I have caught myself doing it. My rule is, I will hit "answer" long enough to tell someone, "I am driving now, I will have to call you back in a minute." Then I hang up. Of course, now a marvelous little device has come out which I will get into in a bit.

Then there is a whole other side of cell phones, and cell phone usage while driving, and this is of course, text messaging. Another thing I am sure most of you have seen someone doing, driving down the road typing out a message on a keypad the size of a pack of cigarettes. I can barely answer my teenaged daughters' text messages while sitting at my office desk. I don't want to imagine trying to do it while driving, there is a disaster waiting to happen.

So what do we do about this? First, is it really a new problem? Think about this, let me take you back in time, to the days before cell phone. This is for those of us dinosaurs, who are old enough to remember such things, but that actually was a time before cell phones. I do remember bad drivers back then too. I would see them in the morning, driving into town, reading the paper, shaving (or putting on makeup) while eating breakfast and drinking a cup of coffee, all at the same time. I used to think their car must drive itself because the person behind the wheel sure wasn't driving.

My point is, whether we ban cell phones altogether, or merely say that teenagers can not use them while driving, whatever we do, and bad drivers are bad drivers. Cell phones are merely the symptom not the disease. True, they are a prevalent symptom and really, "in our faces," at the moment. But the problem is still that there are a great many people out there who are incapable of using a bit of common sense.

What kind of common sense you ask? Well, here are a few rules I have imposed on myself and my teenaged daughter who has her learners permit.

For her, while she has her learners permit, she is absolutely forbidden to use her cell phone in the car at any time. I do not care if the car is parked with the engine turned off. No cell phone if she is behind the wheel. My reasoning is simple, at the moment her job is to learn to drive, nothing else. Period, dot, end of sentence. Okay, I use the "tyrant" method of parenting, it works.

For me? I no longer do the "quick answer" method I described earlier." Frankly, I was uncomfortable with that anyway and usually just let it go until I was stopped somewhere. Remember, I have driven an ambulance for some years and I know that the safety of the vehicle I am driving is my responsibility. It is not just for me but for any other passengers as well as for anyone I may hurt in another vehicle or alongside the road by my actions. I take driving seriously, which is probably why I have +5 positive driving points on my record and get regular rebates from my insurance company.

What I do use now is a marvelous little device called "Bluetooth." I can put it in my ear and talk on it just like I am carrying on a conversation with someone sitting beside me in the truck. My hands are free for driving, my head is free to move around and my vision is not restricted.

I know there is someone reading this who is scowling right now and saying, "NO! No cell phone at all!" To them I say, "Have you ever driven a car while talking to a passenger? It is the same thing. Now, where I do limit myself is dialing. I do not dial while driving for the same reason I do not try to text message while driving, it is a disaster waiting to happen. My phone is supposed to have voice activated dialing, I can tap the Bluetooth, on my ear, tell it who to call, and it calls them. The next time it works will be the first. Basically, I can call someone before I start to drive or I can answer a call while driving. In a pinch I may call someone I have on speed dial while I am sitting at a stop light but that is pushing it.

I used to have a CB in my truck, in the days before cell phone, a lot of people did. CB's take up a lot more of your hand usage than a Bluetooth does but I never heard anyone complaining about CB's causing accidents. The bottom line is the cell phone/accident issue is simple. Use some common sense. Do not be texting and dialing while driving. Only use a phone if you have a hands free device like Bluetooth of something similar, do not be reading text messages while you are driving and do not become so focused on your conversation that you lose your situational awareness for what is going on around you. If you can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, you can carry on a conversation and drive at the same time, just do not be doing all the other stuff which will distract you.