Cell Phones and Car Crashes: An Unhappy Marriage

We've discussed it here before, using your cellphone while driving is just plain dangerous. The District has been out front of jurisdictions in implementing safety laws designed to reduce car accidents attributable to inattention from cellphone use. http://www.maryland-law.com/blog/226.cfm

Some of the lateest findings reinforce this necessity the more. It is suggested that you are four times more likely to be in a car crash if you are driving while using your cellphone.  http://www.abc22.com/Global/story.asp?S=11150817

Why is this? It has been suggested that this stems from a phenomenon known as perceptual blindness. The basic idea is that focusing one's attention on a conversation while driving detracts from your ability to observe potential dangers that are there to be seen.

In an era where multi-tasking is the norm, we relegate one of the most deadly activities, driving, to a secondary function when we are concentrating on using a phone. Obviously, this is compounded when we take our eyes off the road to see who is calling us (Should I answer?), to dial numbers or worst of all to text.

When we at Clark and Steinhorn litigate car and truck crash injury cases, we routinely ask for cellphone billing records to see if the negligent party who caused the accident was on the phone.

So do yourself and the motoring public a favor, pull over if you have to use your phone, you might just save yourself from a bad accident.