Yesterday, Philadelphia representatives voted for a tough new bill strictly banning handheld cell phone use while driving. Overwhelmingly approved by the Pennsylvania House, the bill now goes to the Senate. If passed, Pennsylvania will become the fifth state to ban both talking and texting while driving.
Driving a car is such a normal everyday part of American life that most people take it for granted. Drivers regularly apply makeup or shave on the way to work, munch their lunches while driving between errands, check through their CDs and pop in some new tunes while on the highway, plug new destinations into their GPS units, and more. In pursuit of our fast-paced multi-tasking lifestyle, Americans seem driven to pack as much activity into every single second as they can. Multi-tasking among teens and young adults who regularly spend in excess of 8 to 10 hours plugged into electronics -- listening to music on their iPods while surfing the Internet, talking on cell phones and texting simultaneously -- has sparked recent media concern. Put these kids behind a wheel and traffic safety officials say you have a recipe for disaster.
In fact, Philadelphia drivers of any age who combine driving with other activities decrease concentration and increase the risk of personal injury car accidents. Studies have found that people don't actually multi-task as well as they think they do. The brain focuses on one thing at a time. Talking on the phone while driving impairs response time as much as driving drunk. If you talk on the phone while driving, you brain focuses on your conversation, causing reaction time to lag when a car accident situation occurs. Decreased response time is the same whether you're using a handheld phone or hands-free headset. It's the conversation that is distracting. The result of distracting driving in Philadelphia has been deadly, prompting Pennsylvania to join other states in considering distracted driver laws that focus on cell phone use, particularly texting.
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