Mobile Phone Safety

It won’t come as news to you that the government have revealed after strenuous tests and studies that using a Mobile Phone while driving limits and lowers your driving capability. Anything from response time to checking if somebody is in the lane you are about to change into suffers dramatically if you are using a mobile phone while driving.

It has been made illegal to use a phone without the use of an earpiece or microphone installed into your cars stereo system due to the extra risk that you loose a hand while holding your handset to your ear. Although it is not completely understood just yet, it has also been proven that your are more distracted from the road if you are talking on a mobile phone than to a passenger in the car with you.

On Britain’s roads, more than a thousand accidents happen a year due to drivers being preoccupied with their mobile phone conversation than the road and other drivers, and in 2007 twenty people died from said accidents. As the slogan said when the ban was introduced; missing a phone call will not kill you, not paying attention most certainly can.

There has generally been an acceptance of the new law, with researchers saying the attitude is similar as to when it became compulsory to wear a seatbelt. Most people didn’t do it when it wasn’t lawful, even though it made sense, but once it was illegal not to, they would do so.

Some sceptics have said that it is silly to create a specific law that condemns mobile phone use but there is no mention of those who read the paper or do their make up while speeding down the motorway. It is true that even after the ban has been passed, we continue to see people chatting away in their own little world.

All we can hope is that we can educate those who continue to evade the new law to see how dangerous it is, and they will invest in a hands free kit!