Restrictions on using cellphones while behind the wheel have spread around the country, but a complete ban — including barring drivers from talking with hands-free devices — appears to be a dead issue.
The Governors Highway Safety Association has set aside a California proposal to push state legislatures to consider a total ban on cell phone use for drivers, according to the The Washington Post.
No states have banned all cellphone conversations while driving. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have made it illegal to text while driving, and eight states and D.C. have prohibited any use of handheld cellphones.
Part of the reason highway safety officials set aside the proposal is skeptcism about the effectiveness of existing laws banning cell phone use. “We don’t want this to become like the speeding issue, which we’ve already lost. Everybody speeds,” Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association, told the Post.
Pilot programs funded by the federal government this summer found that it was relatively easy to catch drivers talking on the phone, but more difficult to spot texting drivers. In either case, the amount of effort law enforcement authorities are willing to commit to the issue is crucial.
Many Americans seem to be well aware that cell phones and driving are a dangerous combination, even if they don’t take that into account themselves when they get behind the wheel. In a survey of drivers by the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety, two-thirds of respondents said cell phone conversations while driving are a very serious safety threat but nearly 70 percent admitted to doing it themselves within the past month.
Distracted driving — including driving while distracted by cell phone conversations or other activities — were a factor in 448,000 traffic injuries and 5,474 traffic fatalities last year, according a report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
