Cell Phones Kill

In January 2004, at 4:00 p.m., in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a 20-year-old woman ran a red light while talking on a cell phone. The driver’s vehicle slammed into another vehicle crossing with the green light directly in front of her. The vehicle she hit was not the first car through the intersection, it was the third or fourth. The police investigation determined the driver never touched her brakes and was traveling 48 mph when she hit the other vehicle.

The crash cost the life of a 12-year-old boy. Witnesses told investigators that the driver was not looking down, not dialing the phone, or texting. She was observed looking straight out the windshield talking on her cell phone as she sped past four cars and a school bus stopped in the other south bound lane of traffic.

Researchers have called this crash a classic case of inattention blindness caused by the cognitive distraction of a cell phone conversation. Vision is the most important sense for safe driving. Yet, drivers using hands-free phones (and those using handheld phones) have a tendency to “look at” but not “see” objects. Estimates indicate that drivers using cell phones look but fail to see up to 50 percent of the information in their driving environment.

Distracted drivers experience what researchers call inattention blindness, similar to that of tunnel vision. Drivers are looking out the windshield, but they do not process everything in the roadway environment that they must know to effectively monitor their surroundings, seek and identify potential hazards, and respond to unexpected situations.

The driver responsible for the above crash was on the phone with her church where she volunteered with children the age of the young boy who lost his life as the result of her phone call. She pled guilty to negligent homicide and the lives of two families were terribly and permanently altered. Countless numbers of similar crashes continue everyday.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Nashville car accident caused by a driver under the influence of a cell phone contact the experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to find out about your rights and rememedies.

As an experienced and dedicated Nashville automobile accident attorney, I try to keep my readers up-to-date on the newest information on driving safety. As I’ve mentioned before on several occasions studies shoe that talking on a cell phone, whether hand-held or hands-free makes a driver as impaired as if they had a blood alcohol level of .04. There is a definite trend toward banning cell phone use while driving. The use of all cell phones while driving a school bus is prohibited in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The use of all cell phones by novice drivers is restricted in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

A jurisdiction-wide ban on driving while talking on a hand-held cell phone is in place in 9 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) and the District of Columbia. Utah has named the offense careless driving. Under the Utah law, no one commits an offense when speaking on a cell phone unless they are also committing some other moving violation other than speeding.

Local jurisdictions may or may not need specific state statutory authority to ban cell phones. Localities that have enacted restrictions on cell phone use include: Oahu, HI; Chicago, IL; Brookline, MA; Detroit, MI; Santa Fe, NM; Brooklyn, North Olmstead, and Walton Hills, OH; Conshohocken, Lebanon, and West Conshohocken, PA; Waupaca County, WI; and Cheyenne, WY.

Text messaging is banned for all drivers in 30 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, novice drivers are banned from texting in 8 states (Alabama, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia) and school bus drivers are banned from text messaging in 2 states (Oklahoma, and Texas).

For more information about this and many other driver safety issues contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates.

http://www.iihs.org/laws/cellphonelaws.aspx