Are Cell Phones Hazardous While Driving?

Are Cell Phones Hazardous While Driving?

Are Cell Phones Hazardous While Driving?

How many time have we been driving down the expressway and seen someone talking on their cell phone? In all truthfulness, I can not count because it is an every day occurrence. Their have been numerous times I have been on the expressway and seen someone reading the newspaper, putting on make-up, talking on the phone. As we know driving is an activity that requires complete and total concentration. However, can we give the amount of concentration while we are talking on the phone? The answer to that question is no. In this essay I am going to explain why you can not give that amount of concentration while on the phone, talk about the difference of using a handheld or hands-free phone, and talk about some ways companies and state laws are trying to help get phones off the road.
First, let us talk about concentration while driving. According to a psychologist at the University of Utah “Talking on a cell phone while driving sharply reduces brain activity needed to keep track of road conditions and leads drivers to gaze at things without their brains actually seeing them”(qtd. in Elias). In the same article David Strayer a psychologist says, “The brain has a limited capacity for attention so whatever is siphoned off by a phone conversation is subtracted from attention for driving” (qtd. in Elias). With the information that I recovered from Dr. Strayer, I would say that talking on the phone cuts the level of concentration need for driving to an unsafe level. He also states that drivers react extremely slow while talking on the phone.  
This brings me to my next the differences between talking on the phone and having a hands-free phone system. According to Dr. Strayer, “Hands-free phones pose the same safety hazards as handheld phones” (qtd. in Elias). In a study of forty people who drive a simulator four times each, under different conditions. The study showed that handheld and hands-free phones both caused...