Yeah that’s pretty much what it looks like from here. Strange.
Does this mean talking on the phone by holding it or is there a separate category for hands-free devices? I’d like to see a comparison of hands-free cell users and people talking to passengers. I bet it’s pretty similar.
“I’m at [a restaurant]. I was just driving down the road and all this gravel hit the front and side of my car. I looked in the rear view and I saw this little red car flipping and bouncing across the highway and then it ricocheted off the front of this truck into the lane behind me and was hit by another car. All the traffic just stopped. There was no one behind me after that… It happened so fast… If I had been a millisecond later… must’ve come from the other side… didn’t even see it…” […] “…call me.”
Voicemail is an interesting thing, sometimes.
Opal-
There’s been research that shows little or no difference between distraction/accident rates for hands-free vs. “in hand” so the are statistically equivalent (which IMO makes the current laws banning only hand-held kind of stupid, but that’s a rant for another day). I’ll see if I can find a cite on line.
That, combined with the data above, should give you a pretty good idea of “on the phone” vs. “conversing” or “distractions” from passengers: according to that research, the latter are more (often) distracting and cause more accidents than cell phones.
Well, we’re obviously not as important as you are. We realize that the Earth will continue to revolve if we’re out of touch for 15 minutes.
Then again, my family and friends don’t seem to spend as much time in the hoosegow as yours do…