Today after spending the entire day in Traffic Survival School and listening to all of the evils of cell phone usage while driving I got to thinking about driving distractions in general and came to the conclusion that cell phone usage may be getting a bad rap.  In particular when talking about hands-free usage.  I have always wondered why talking hands free on a cell phone while driving is any more distracting or dangerous than talking to the passenger in the front seat.  Additionally, I suspect that hands free cell phone usage is probably less distracting than talking to passengers in the back seat as many times drivers tilt their head to the right taking their focus from the road.

As a result of that I assembled a list of other distractions that in my opinion are more dangerous than cell phone usage generally and particularly when compared to hands-free usage.  Number one on my list is women applying makeup or doing their hair while driving.  Think about that – what is necessary to apply makeup or do hair – generally it requires looking in a mirror and often times requires both hands!  The classic example of this occurred a few years ago in the Dallas Texas area.  On a major thruway in morning rush hour I witnessed a woman in bumper-to-bumper traffic at 55 mph with her hair spray in one hand, a hairbrush in the other and the visor down so that she could look in the mirror!  Had there been a collision it would have been called an accident, but in my mind it would have been an “On Purpose”.  As we move down the list, people dealing with children in the back seat comes to mind.  It is not uncommon to see someone turned about 90 degrees away from the road and looking in the back seat dealing with children.  On my way home this evening, I followed a woman that steadfastly refused to use her turn signals.  After a bit I pulled abreast of her car and found the reason.  She had her small dog in her left arm and I am sure that made things like working the turn signal lever difficult.  Further,  having Fido in her arm, and wiggling around as animals do, surely distracted her attention from driving.   Not only was she potentially distracted but with Fido in her left arm she is most certainly ill prepared to respond to any unexpected occurrence. I am sure that most of us have witnessed people reading while driving, often times in rush hour traffic.  There is no doubt in my mind that reading a newspaper or book while driving is far more distracting than talking on a cell phone as by definition to read your eyes have to be diverted from the road.  At least while talking on a cell phone one can keep their eyes on the road. This list is my no means all encompassing and I suspect that most could add activities to the list, but I think you get the gist of what I am talking about.

No one talks about law enforcement officers usage of communication gear while driving.  In addition to the equipment installed in their squad car, I often see them talking on a cell phone and not the hands-free variety.  Now I find it difficult to believe that the average law enforcement officer is more qualified to multitask while driving that most of us average citizens.  I would even suggest that given the sometimes highly charged and oftentimes emergency nature of their communications that law enforcement officers would be more distracted than us average citizens.  Wonder why there is no chatter about this one!

I, like most, have witnessed people who are obviously distracted talking on a cell phone while driving but as noted earlier distracted driving is not unique to cell phone usage and probably not the most distracting.   Further, as noted earlier, using a voice activated hands-free cell phone dramatically reduces any risk.  One would properly argue that doing anything else while driving holds the prospect of distracting the driver from Task One but having said that it would be difficult to eliminate things like talking with a passenger in the front seat or other normal activities.  So before we “Throw the baby out with the bathwater”  let’s slow down and consider all of the facts.