[FairOpinion]

In other words, "it's the driver, stupid".

Some people drive responsibly, and those continue to do so, when using a cell phone occasionally, others don't pay attention to driving, even when not doing anything else overtly to distract themselves.

This is what some of us have been saying all along, but the government, in its infinite wisdom makes laws against cell phones. How about making distracted drivers illegal?

[jrawk]

Cell Phones are ubiquitous and even more prevalent as the age of the driver is reduced.

There are many correlations that explain this that have nothing to do with cell phones.

I would love to know what methods they used to exclude the probability that younger drivers aren't as attentive?

Or the seven others I am sure one could come up with if they sat and thought about it.

This is a non-story. In fact I now declare the 77% of stories involving Cell Phones, Driving and Statistics actually point out that a lot of people are not the best drivers in the world and also own cell phones.

-- lates
-- jrawk

[Dr Warmoose]

How about making distracted drivers illegal?

Quick! You are a police officer on the road in your patrol car - how do you determine if a person is "distacted" when they are thinking about their relationship?

Now you are the prosecuting attorney ready to present your case before the judge. What evidence do you use?

Or are we going to use evidence like they did in the movie Minority Report?

[JohnnyZ]

How about making distracted drivers illegal?

How about charging them appropriate insurance rates? I'd be willing to bet credit score, among other things, correlates pretty well with "distractedness". But government seem to be hell-bent to prevent loss score and other factors being used in policy rating; they want to keep up a system where the good drivers pay to subsidize the accident-prone ones.

[Publius6961]

The results indicate there may be a "distracted-driver personality" type behind the wheel.

Golly...
All this time we've been calling them idiots.

People who don't know their limitations.
Indeed, who don't have the mental horsepower to know that limitations exist.

[firebrand]

LOL. They are trying to figure out whom they can call next! Obsession! Addiction! They must be constantly In Touch.

[RightWhale]

What about those who post to FR while driving, or those who format articles to post to FR using HTML? Would they be in the distracted category as a group?

[savedbygrace]

A survey? They claim to be able to make these conclusions based on a survey? How silly.

[Freedom4US]

You know, military pilots routinely fly at night, under night vision goggles, and talk on the radio at the same time, as well as monitoring air speed, altitude, TGT, and a host of other important indications, while avoiding dangerous obstacles, navigating to precise locations, etc.

Why am I thinking the problem is with idiot drivers, not necessarily a problem with cell-phones.. Similar to firearms, our spineless politicians will do nothing material to correct the issue, but spew "expert" studies such as this, and villify the cell phone.

[bill3foot]

In some respect I agree, however people I've known for years to be great drivers become total idiots behind the wheel when their on the cell.
I must admit,I also have made errors while driving because I was on the phone, no wrecks just stuff like driving way to slow or sitting to long at a red light you know common cell phone infractions. I am man enough to admit it, I wish others would accept the fact it is a distraction and a law were in place or at least a law for hands free or something.
IMO

[cspackler]

I'm sorry, but this is has to be one of the most ludicrous articles that I've ever read. Why not just say "Magazine Readers Are More Distracted When On the Toilet, even when not reading a magazine"? I agree that using the phone while driving is not a good idea (actually, it's just the actual dialing part that is the most dangerous, IMO), but this is just laughable.