Smartphones have become safety hazards
As a nation, we are justifiably concerned over the possibility of another terrorist attack. Yet in all probability, it’s drivers more interested in their iPhones than safe driving practices that could contribute to our demise.
A SeptemberWall Street Journal article reported that traffic fatalities surged 14 percent (NSC statistics) in the first half of 2015, blamed on more drivers, cheaper gas, catastrophic weather, etc. But famed Berkshire-Hathaway CEOWarren Buffet says he believes distracted driving could be an “overlooked contributor.”
In reality, we have no idea how many auto collisions occur annually due to our addiction to our phones, especially with the invention of the smartphone. According to a USA Today article last year, “Cellphone use causes one in four car accidents.” “The (2014 edition) of National Safety Council’s annual injury and fatality report, ‘Injury Facts,’ found that the use of cellphones ... (caused) 26 percent of the nation’s car accidents, a modest increase from the previous year.”
However, this report doesn’t include all the incidents in which drivers did not divulge that they were on their phones. For example, can you imagine anyone reporting, “I was on my cellphone and driving totally distracted when I plowed into your vehicle.” Nor did “Injury Facts” name texting as the primary culprit, since in 95 percent of the cases investigated, drivers were using hand-held or handfree cellphones.
Fourteen states ban hand-held cellphone use while driving, but Ohio is not one. If we are honest, most of us have difficulty doing more than one task at a time. Especially when that task involves use of a cellphone while traveling 70-plus miles an hour on the interstate.
It’s not just at high rates of speed either. How many times have you been stopped at a red light when the driver in the adjacent lane is furtively checking email, a Facebook account, or illegally texting? When the light turns green, the driver just sits there. It’s even more frightening when you are moving and spot another driver’s neck in the downward dog yoga position.
Distracted driving includes: cellphone use, texting, applying makeup, programming a GPS, eating, arguing with a passenger, etc. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, “In 2012, 3,328 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver ... an additional 421,000 people were injured.”
If you’ve ever fought your way back to health after a wreck, you realize that those numbers represent countless individuals whose lives have been severely impacted by someone else’s possibly careless behavior.
We all want to use our smartphones, so many of us are contributing unnecessarily to the problem by looking the other way. There are Ohio laws against texting, but the National Safety Council advises folks who want to be part of the solution to “Support Cellphone distracted driving legislation ... for bills banning cell phone use-handheld and (even) hands-free-while driving.”