Derk wrote:
CEarly wrote:

and he chose to fool with his cell phone will driving.
It's *STRICTLY* forbidden here and huge fines are given. Only hands free
calling is allowed here. I'm amazed this is considered to be normal in the
US.

Some individual states in the US have similar laws, but personally I
think they miss the main message of the safety studies that have been
done. All the studies I've seen that compared hands-free vs. regular
cellphone use found that both resulted in greatly increased risk
compared to driving without any cellphone use. The main problem is not
that the driver's hand is in use on the phone, but that his mind and
attention are engaged there rather than on his driving. The situation
is quite different from normal conversation with a passenger who is
present in the car and can see when the driving situation is more
critical and their possibly heated discussion should be suspended.

The cellular industry has cleverly joined with legislators in creating
laws that allow only hands-free devices as a way to forestall more
restrictive rules that would restrict all phone use while driving.
This allows the cellular companies to continue to increase sales and
even to gain additional profits from sales of the hands-free
accessories. And of course it's a popular approach with many
legislators who themselves rely on their cellphones while driving.