NHTSA CELL PHONE POLICY DRAFT

The wireless communications industry has grown at an extraordinary rate in recent years. There are currently more than 170 million cell phone subscribers -more than half of the US. population. According to a National Highway Trafic Safety Administration survey, 6% of daylight driving time - up fmm 4% in 2000 - involves talking on the phone.
However, NHTSA’s position is that the primary responsibility of the driver has always been to operate a motor vehicle safely. It is a task that requires full attention and focus. Statistics show that all distractions, whether associated with the use of technology or not, can increase the risk of a crash.
NHTSA estimates that driver distraction contributes to about 25 percent of all police reported traffic crashes. Though all distractions are a concern, we have seen the growth of a particular distraction, namely cell phone use while driving. While the precise impact cannot be quantified, we nevertheless have concluded that the use of cell phones while driving has contributed to an increasing number of crashes, injuries and fatalities.

A significant body of research worldwide indicates that both hand-held and hands-free cell phones increase the risk of a crash. Indeed, research has demonstrated that there is little, if any, difference between the use of hand-held and hands-free phones in contributing to the risk of a crash while driving distracted. Hands-free or hand-held, we have found that the cognitive distraction is significant enough to degrade a drivers’ performance.
We recommend that drivers not use these devices when driving, except in an emergency. Moreover, we are convinced that legislation forbidding the use of handheld cell phones while driving may not be effective in improving highway safety since it will not address the problem. In fact, such legislation may erroneously imply that hands-free phones are safe to use while driving.

New Rule for Truck, Bus Drivers: No Texting

Washington (CNN) -- Drivers of commercial trucks and buses are prohibited from texting under federal guidelines that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Tuesday.

"We want the drivers of big rigs and buses and those who share the roads with them to be safe," LaHood said in a statement. "This is an important safety step, and we will be taking more to eliminate the threat of distracted driving."

The prohibition is effective immediately. Truck and bus drivers who text while driving commercial vehicles may be subject to civil or criminal penalties of up to $2,750, the Department of Transportation said in a news release.

One of the nation's largest groups representing professional truck drivers -- the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association -- expressed support for the goal but dismay at its implementation.

"We support where they are going, but not how they got there," said Todd Spencer, the group's executive vice president. "Making their action effective immediately bypasses normal regulatory rulemaking processes. Those processes allow actions to be vetted for unintended consequences as well as potential implementation and enforcement problems.

"We very much share in their goal, but their legal justification for taking immediate action raises many concerns."

Cracking down on distracted drivers has been a focus of LaHood's since he took office last year.

In September, he convened a two-day summit on the issue in Washington. The Transportation Department recently launched the Web site distraction.gov to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving.

And this month, LaHood and National Safety Council President Janet Froetscher announced the creation of the advocacy group FocusDriven, a nonprofit that supports the families of distracted driving victims, modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, drivers take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds out of every six seconds while texting. This research shows drivers who text are more than 20 times more likely to get in an accident than nondistracted drivers.

Nineteen states, plus the District of Columbia and Guam, have passed laws banning texting while driving. Six states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, ban the use of handheld devices while driving.

President Obama also signed an executive order requiring federal employees not to text while driving government-owned vehicles or with government-owned equipment, and were ordered to comply with the move December 30.

Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted or inattentive driver, and more than 500,000 were injured, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Eighty percent of crashes are related to driver inattention, according to a Virginia Tech study, and drivers who use handheld devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves, the National Safety Council reports.

The focus on texting while driving comes after a few high-profile accidents.

WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN TEXTING WHILE DRIVING
This is a GRAPHIC AND HAUNTING video created by British law enforcement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdV9ADjpcg
Talk to your family members about the dangers of talking and texting while driving.

Call for a FREE dash board gel pad to mount your cell phone in your car.