Driving while using a cell phone is a dangerous distraction that should be illegal. It contributes to a significant number of motor vehicle accidents and deaths each year. Even hands-free use requires dual-task processing that takes attention away from safe driving. While some argue banning cell phone use won't stop all accidents, it could prevent thousands of deaths annually by reducing this major cause of distracted driving. For safety and policy reasons, all states should prohibit any cell phone use behind the wheel.

1. RUNNING HEAD: Driving While Using Your Cell Phone
Driving While Using Your Cell Phone
Jacob Eslick
Cornerstone
Roxanne Heimann

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Distracted driving is one of the biggest causes of death. One of those major
distractions is a cell phone. Driving while using your cell phone is a danger and
should be made illegal. All of us have cell phones, and many of us have texted while
driving. Even while you are performing the act you know that it is wrong and that
you are distracted while driving. Many think that driving while texting should be
illegal, others believe that it always will happen so we cannot stop, and many still
have to choose a side.
Driving while using your cell phone is a question of policy. We all know that
it is wrong to do and we all know what happens to our attention when cell phones
are in use while we are driving. There is no fact or value behind driving with your
cell phone; instead we are debating a course of action. There is much evidence to
support the claim that driving while using your cell phone should be illegal, but
instead we have not acted and the course of action is still in debate. The debate over
why the biggest cause of motor vehicle accidents should be illegal or not illegal.
Everywhere there is a problem a solution can arise. Making driving while
using your cell phone illegal is one of those solutions to help us stop distracted
driving. When driving we only have a single task and that is driving. When we have a
cell phone in our hand we are performing a dual task, which splits our attention and
therefore is part of distracted driving. According to Seppa’s 2013 article,
“Undergraduate students in a driving simulator are slower to brake when given auditory
tasks via a hands-free cell phone while driving (dual task) compared with
just driving (single task).” Even when we are talking on our cell phone, our mind is not
completely on the road. We are not only putting ourselves in harm by being on our cell

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phones, but putting everyone in harm around us. When we are texting while driving, our
focus goes towards our phone instead of the road. We tend to swerve and go off the road
a little bit, sometimes even a lot. This is what poses the danger. With our mind on our
phone, we are making ourselves susceptible to one of the most dangerous ways to travel.
Vehicle injuries are never an accident, but are some cause of our attention off the road.
Car accidents are not because of a chance event. There is an overall cause and
they are usually not from equipment failure, but instead an event that the driver
performed while driving. In 2013, there were 32,719 vehicle deaths in 2013 could have
been prevented if our attention was fully on the road. According to Seppa’s 2013 article,
“Vehicle injuries are not accidents. They are predictable and prevented.” The reasoning
behind this claim was talking to emergency room doctors. Most of those doctors believed
that every crash was not really an accident. We rarely see an accident due to equipment
failure or some natural occurrence. Every crash that happens is due to the individual who
is operating the vehicle. While cell phones are not the only reason of those “accidents” it
is a leading cause. We get on our cell phone because we find driving boring and
uneventful, and we tend to find something to occupy our time rather than driving. We are
all ready putting ourselves at risk driving, just adding cell phones is one of those many
distractions that can put us and others around us in harms way.
Cell phone use is the biggest distraction and most common among drivers. We
always are on our cell phones and everyone has one. We tend to not be able to let the
phone out of our hand. There are many different distractions that we find while driving;
such as the radio, talking to friends, looking for something in the console, and many
more. All these are common distractions, but the use of cell phones creates a longer time

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span of our attention on the road and our attention on the distraction. In Walter’s 2012
article, “A new report from the National Safety Council (NSC) estimates that 24 percent
of all motor vehicle crashes involve cell phone use and outlines how advances in
legislation, enforcement, technology, culture, and corporate policies could help save lives
and make the roads safer.” With almost ¼ of motor vehicle crashes caused by cell
phones, which is a lot of crashes that can be prevented. That is 7,852 lives a year that can
be easily prevented by people not using their cell phones, and better yet if cell phone use
while driving was illegal. We would like to get rid of all distractions while driving, but
that is inevitable that there will be distractions. Instead, the best we can do is try
eliminating the leading cause by creating a policy on it.
Using cell phones while driving is aleady in the process of becoming illegal, but
we still need to make a final push to make all 50 states ban using your cell phone while
driving. In Rosenberger’s 2013 article, “39 states outlaw texting on a handheld phone
while driving, and 10 states maintain laws against driving while talking on a handheld
phone.” Some of those states include: California, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, and many
more. Other states that have a ban are only on 18 and younger drivers. What makes an
18-year and older drive less likely to perform while using their cell phone than anyone
else? The effect of using your cell phone while driving is the same throughout all ages.
We cannot expect someone who is 31 to be able to swerve into other lanes less than
someone under 18 just because they have more experience. No one gains experience
when using your cell phone and driving. We are just gaining a risk factor to put people
into harms way. 39 states have seen the effects, why can we not make all 50 states see the
same fatalities that those 39 states see? As a nation we should it as our job to put a end to

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something so fatal. Using cell phones while driving does not just affect the person
driving, but the people around us, including the people that are the closest to us. Almost
everyone knows the results of driving while using our cell phone, but we still argue that
we should not end it.
When people argue about why banning cell phones while driving should not be
banned it always comes back to it’s going to happen anyways. Driving has always been
caused by accidents by people doing careless things. Even without the cell phone we
would be doing things that would get us into accidents. One of the arguments is that
California put a ban on cell phones and it showed no conclusive evidence that the
problem of driving while using our cell phones is affecting the amount of fatalities. In
2014 Burger, Kaffine, and Yu wrote: “While this non-result may seem surprising to
people accustomed to seeing drivers using cell phones doing careless or dangerous things
on the highway, drivers were doing careless and dangerous things on highways long
before the invention of the cell phone.” Even though that there is no conclusive evidence
that the ban helped limit fatalities, it still does not take away from that fact that it still
helps limit distracted driving. Earlier it was stated that cell phones are 25% of the reason
that there are fatalities. With the ban in California, it is easy to say that there was a drastic
change in the amount of cell phones being used. Most of the crashes are because of
having the cell phone in our hand while driving, so many believe that hands-free cell
phone use is expectable.
The argument about hands-free driving is that the phone is not in our hand so it
not a distraction. People say that hands-free use of cell phones should be allowed. As
long as you are not looking at the screen and typing than there is no problem with it. In a

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2008 article by Fedezzo, Fagioli, Nocera, and Sdoia, “drivers were slower at responding
to the visual stimuli when conversing through a hand-held cell phone or an earphone-
operated cell phone than when conversing through a loudspeaker-operated cell phone or
with a passenger. These results suggest that due to the brain coding the space into
multiple representations, devices that make phone conversations taking place in the near,
personal space make drivers slower at responding to visual stimuli, compared to devices
that make the conversation occurring in a far space.” Even though that you are not typing
or looking at your cell phone screen, it is still distracted driving. You are doing a dual-
task and taking your attention away from the driving. When using the hands-free cell
phone use, you are paying more attention to the text you are trying to get across or the
conversation you are having than the task at hand. The fact behind any use of cell phones
while driving is that it is dangerous and that we are not paying attention to the task at
hand.
Many people think that driving while texting should be illegal, others believe
that it always will happen so we cannot stop, and many still have to choose a side.
Driving while using your cell phone is a dangerous and should be illegal. We are not
just risking our lives, but everyone around us. We may think that it will never
happen to us, or that I do it all the time and nothing bad has happen, but it only
takes one wrong choice when using your cell phone to make it so that you are that
reason that there is an accident. Do not be that person that is on your cell phone and
taking the chance of everyone’s lives around you.

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Burger, N.E., Kaffine, D.T., & Yu,B. (2014). Did california’s hand-held phone
ban reduce accidents?. Transportation research part A: policy & practive.
Fedezzo,F. Fagioli, S. Di Nocera, F. & Sdoia, S. (2008). Shifting attention across
near and far spaces: implication for the use of hands-free cell phones while driving.
Accident analysis and prevention.
Cell phone use contributes to 24 percent of crashes. (2012). EHS Today. 5(5). 22
Seppa, N. (2013). Impactful distraction: Talking while driving poses dangers that
people seem unable to see. Science News. 184(4). 20-24. doi:10.1002/scin.5591840423
Rosenberger, R. (2013). The problem with hands-free dashboard cellphones.
Communications of the acm. 56(4). 36-40. Doi:10.1145/2436256.2436268