Don't drink or call while driving

Starting July 1, all drivers in California will be required to use a hands-free device when talking on a cellphone. Five other states -- Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Washington -- plus the District of Columbia already have such laws. The question remains, however, what's the point?

"There's a common misperception that hands-free phones are safer when the research clearly suggests that they are both equally risky," Arthur Goodwin, a researcher at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, told the Los Angeles Times.

Forcing drivers to use hands-free devices is a political maneuver, not one designed to increase safety, according to most researchers. It's simply an action taken to make people feel safer. Statistics indicate, however, it will not reduce accidents or highway fatalities. In fact, Goodwin believes hands-free devices may make things worse by encouraging drivers to make more and longer calls while driving.

Former Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta had drafted a letter in 2003 that was supposed to be sent to governors urging them not to endorse hands-free only calling. He wrote in the letter "overwhelmingly, research indicates that both hand-held and hands-free phones increase the risk of a crash." For some reason never adequately explained, the letter was never sent.

The letter was drafted because a 2003 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a division of the Transportation Department, found that 955 deaths in 2002 could be directly attributed to persons using cellphones while driving.

Other studies are even more startling. The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis in 2003 estimated there are 2,600 deaths and 12,000 serious injuries a year caused by drivers using cellphones. A 2006 study by the University of Utah revealed drivers using cellphones were four times more likely to get into an accident than those not using them and there was no difference between those using hands-free devices and those not using them. The issue, they said, is not whether a driver has both hands on the wheels, but whether the driver is concentrating on a telephone conversation instead of driving. The same study showed that the rate of accidents caused by those using cellphones was the same as for those who were legally drunk although those that were drunk did a better job of braking and avoiding rear-end collisions than those talking on cellphones.

There are those who will argue that there are more accidents involving drivers without hands-free devices than those with them, but that's a faulty argument because fewer drivers use hands-free devices. The risk of an accident is identical.

It's interesting to note that DuPont, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell prohibit employees from using cellphones while driving, even hands-free cellphones.

Of course, no lawmaker desiring re-election is ever going to introduce legislation banning cellphone use while driving a motor vehicle. But don't go thinking that hands-free accessories are a safety device. They are simply devices.