Cell phones don’t get vehicles involved in accidents, drivers do. There are significant differences in individual abilities to drive safely enough while using a cell phone and, unfortunately, in drivers’ judgment as to when to ignore the phone and just drive the car.
We should have educational programs, starting in high school, which help people develop these skills. People on the other end of a motorist’s cell-phone conversation would know what the driver is up against if drivers would mention near the start of the conversation, “I’m driving right now.” Both parties could learn to adopt the etiquette that if the driver suddenly falls silent, he’s not being rude, he’s just giving full attention to a traffic situation that requires it.
Studies don’t seem to be very good at keeping count of incidents in which drivers averted a serious accident, whether they were engaged in a distracting activity or not. There’s no count of how many vehicles didn’t get hit by a red-light runner because the other drivers gave way with no police witness. We don’t know if any of those defensive drivers were on cell phones then.
We don’t know how many times a child wasn’t hit by a car driven by a driver on a cell phone who could hit the brake in time because he had his eyes on the road instead of the floor mat.
