Driving anywhere, whether on the daily commute to and from work, out for short-distance errands, or on a vacation excursion across the state or country, one cannot help but notice how many people are not really driving, but having a telephone conversation. Society has become so dependent on devices being available at any place and at any time that people have gotten out of the habit of performing one task at a time, in this case focusing on driving a vehicle. This puts everyone on the road at a greater risk of having accidents, many times the accidents being fatal. Greater emphasis should be placed on educating people on the inherent dangers of driving while distracted, and laws should be stricter as well as penalties higher for drivers caught using cells phones while driving. An in-depth study was conducted by Fernando Wilson and Jim Stimpson (Wilson is a PhD with Department of Health Management and Policy at University of North Texas Health Science Center, and Stimpson is a PhD with Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at University of North Texas Health Science Center) regarding the statistics involved with …show more content…
While 47 states do have a ban on texting while driving, only 15 states have a ban on hand-held phone use while driving. A June 2013 article in Consumer Reports indicates that many drivers “still do not understand the danger involved in this distraction”, summarizing that 91% of people they surveyed saw a driver talking on a handheld phone, that 43% of people had a conversation on a handheld phone, that 51% admitted using a handheld phone is very dangerous, and that “at any moment during daylight hours, about 660,000—5 percent of U.S. drivers—are using cell phones or other electronic devices” (“The Danger in the Next