Ban Non Emergency Cell Phone Use While Driving?
On Tuesday, December 13
th, the National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] recommended a total ban
on drivers using cell phones except for emergencies. The statistics that
have been recorded prove without a doubt that a large percentage of
auto accidents,
motorcycle accidents, and
truck accidents
are caused by distracted drivers. The distraction can be cognitively,
manually and visually while driving. As a Palm Desert Personal Injury
Lawyer handling all categories of motor vehicle accidents I am often at
a loss to explain why driver's causing most of the accidents do things
like rear-ending cars stopped in broad daylight for a traffic signal.
But the explanation is obvious. Driving is no longer the priority. It
is now about communication and keeping in touch. My personal injury experience
in the Coachella Valley over the last 40 years has given me the opportunity
to analyze the causes of auto accidents. Just driving around the desert
communities of Palm Springs, Palm Desert and Indio allows me to observe
the habits and actions of other drivers. I see drivers eating, drinking,
and talking on cell phones when they should be paying attention to the
road and other cars. I think that a driver causing an accident because
of being distracted while using a cell phone should be penalized to the
same extent as drunk drivers. There have been recent scientific studies
that demonstrate that texting while driving can be more dangerous than
driving while intoxicated. I am not minimizing drunk driving, but at Barry
Regar APLC we see the sad consequences of innocent accident victims being
victimized by careless drivers who were using cell phones for talking
or texting instead of looking at the road ahead. A study published in
2010 in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that smartphone
texting significantly contributed to 16,000
Wrongful deaths
from auto accidents between 2001 and 2007. A recent tragic auto accident
in Missouri that killed two and injured 38 involved a 19-year-old driver
that sent or received 11 text messages during the 11 minutes before the
accident. The last message occurred immediately prior to the accident.
Contact the Palm Springs personal injury lawyer
at this firm for an analysis of any injury producing motor vehicle accident.
And yes, I favor the banning of non-emergency driver cell phone use for
the non-hands free category.
Posted By
Barry Regar APLC
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