Cell phones, in my opinion, have just become the latest popular scapegoat for traffic accidents, but in reality, the cause for accidents hasn't changed since the invention of the automobile.
In Farmington, the town over from where I live, scapegoating has recently become our biggest pastime. Two teenagers, at midnight, drunk to the point of passing out, veer off a back road and slam into a tree. The were going so fast they didn't hit the base of the tree, no, they were airborne 10 feet of the ground when they left the road. Both of them instantly killed.
And the cause of the accident is (drum roll...) Drinking? No, can't be, they were good local kids, they weren't "from away". (continue drum roll...) Driver carelessness? Naw, they couldn't have been speeding or being reckless. (continue drum roll...) No, the accident was because (cymbal!) the roads have too many curves. Yes, that's right, none of that other stuff had anything to do with it, it was the curves in the road.
The problem with this was, of course, they didn't crash in a curve. In fact, they were in one of the most straightest parts of the road. Didn't matter, ever since they've been spending millions removing the curves in the roads.
Eventually the people tired of the curve solution, and looked for something else to take the blame off the two teens. They found one that was even better: There weren't enough streetlights and they didn't know where the road was.
Well, it's not like the rest of the road is lit. Except for a privately owned lamp post outside the high school (it's on the same road), there are no streetlights. None of the back roads are lit in Farmington, and nearly none of the main roads are either. Are people running off the streets right and left, unable to see what's ahead of them? No, most people have discovered the marvel of headlights, but scapegoats don't have to make sense.
Now we're targeting the speed limits, which have apparently become "outrageously too fast". 35 is fast? The speed limit on our main road that goes downtown in now 10, 5 when the elementary school opens and closes.
What did this accomplish? It took the blame off the two drunk kids that recklessness drove as fast as they could in the middle of the night, nearly missing a sleeping bystander's house slamming into a tree in her front yard.
Talking on a cell phone doesn't cause accidents anymore than listening to the radio, talking to the person in the passenger seat, or eating a cheeseburger do. Careless driving causes and always has caused the majority of traffic accidents. People here have a vague enough grasp on which pedal makes the car go and which makes it stop, they can't be expected to remember how to do complex tasks like turning. Countless accidents have been caused by people on route 4 (our only four lane highway) because they simply slam on breaks, pause for a minute and a half or so, then turn as slowly as they can off the road. But the cause for the accidents aren't pinned on their negligence, it's because "the speed limit is too fast". Most accidents here happen when both parties are going under 20 miles and hour. Its a rarity when speeding is the actual cause of a wreck.
I think headset phones might not be such a problem
Holding the phone itself isn't the problem, it's the distraction it creates. Headset phones and speaker phones would not change that, and besides, you still have to dial them.
Why are we blaming cell phones and not the countless other distractions to drivers? Like I said, scapegoats don't have to make sense.
