You have to go Hands Free to keep out of harm’s way on our roads!
Hand Held Mobile Phones Can Drive You To The Grave!
Cold Hard Fact or Myth? (excuse the pun there)
What the heck do you believe these days?
Below are some comments from Wikipedia on “Hands Free“. I have interlaced them with my own opinion. See if you concur!
“Driving while using a hands-free device is not safer than using a hand held mobile phone, as concluded by case-crossover studies”.
Yeah Right! If you agree with this then you possess at least four arms furthermore you are bordering on being an octopus or octopussy depending on your gender.
“The amplified “cognitive workload” involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the amplified risk”.
At least I agree with half the proclamation. Kind of like seeing a ‘babe’ or ‘hunk’ on the sidewalk and trying not to be mentally side tracked.
“One noteworthy omission to that conclusion is a study by headset manufacturer Plantronics, which found 71 percent of the test subjects steered more precisely, 100 percent had faster brake pedal reaction times, and 92 percent maintained a more steady speed when using a headset opposed to handheld”.
Clearly! How can you argue with data from a study by the producer of a hands free device! If you are a conspiracy thinker, biased they may look taking into consideration the origin but actually I AGREE! (in general).
“The consistency of increased accident risk between hands-free and hand held mobile phone use is at odds with legislation in lots of locations that prohibit hand held mobile phone use but allows hands-free”.
I think I understand what they are saying!!!!
Do I really care! What on earth happened to
good old commonsense? Here’s a thought! Get a Hands Free Car Kit!
“Dialing a cell phone is more distracting than chatting
on a mobile phone, and hands-free devices that offer voice-dialing may
diminish or eliminate that
amplified risk”.
Commonsense again I feel but isn’t it astounding how millions of dollars
worldwide are sunk into commissioned studies where a huge percentage of findings turn out to be founded on common sense.
Have you lost your marbles?”
The stark reality is that, of all who have ventured without calamity in this domain, there will forever be a sizeable number who will claim that their ability to multi-task will always allow them to utilize and control a cell phone without any loss of cognitive or physical ability. What is more amusing is that of that number I reckon at least 50% will be male! Male’s multi-tasking? (Might want the Mythbusters here)
You of the female gender take notice. “We will rule the globe once again….. eventually! …..one day!”
Those of us who drive understand that there are numerous distractions and sorry to say for some a simple distraction has lead to catastrophe. Was it a mobile phone? Was it a visual distraction? Or was it a dropped CD into the passengers foot well that simply had to be retrieved and played ‘cos it had the choicest song in the world on it’?
If you are barreling down the street in a ton of gleaming metal on your own, no cars in sight, no lampposts, no girls in bikinis (this is mostly a guy thing), then who really cares what you do?
The reality is uncomplicated. In a world where we actually still claim that we are concerned about our fellow man (aka person cos we need to be politically correct you know!) we need to draw on what is usually known as commonsense.
YES! at 5 km/hr maybe even 10km/hr we can handle almost anything (even us guys) but at regular speeds the majority of us are not uncommonly gifted. However, We will still battle for our rights to make our own decisions. We will not let ‘BIG BROTHER’ person (whatever) govern our lives. But unfortunately in some cases we actually need to stand back and ask ourselves. Was I still in complete control when that s.o.b. veered into my path at speed on a jam packed motorway? Did I really notice that young person walking out from behind that vehicle now that I see her in my rear vision mirror?
Some legislation is commonsense even if it does strip away a small amount of our invincible shell.
If you still believe you are invincible then have a thought for the rest of us. ‘GO HANDSFREE’ and save some one else’s misery!
Summary: Mobile Phones (aka cell phones) are a brilliant technological DISTRACTION when driving. BUT! Now that that’s sorted let’s target the most terrible culprit of all ‘THE DRIVING TEXTER’
