Texting whilst driving

Texting whilst driving- It's now official ! We know we all do! it We are all guilty of it at some stage! Now is the time to stop! It has been over two years since I first wrote this article. Yet on a daily basis I see drivers texting and talking on their mobile or cell phones whilst driving they call them smart phones also but really that is not too smart given the catastrophic effects a simple text message can have on your ability to concentrate whilst driving.

Texting using a mobile or cell phone for texting or even hands free is dangerous, very dangerous. People are losing their lives and killing others whilst using a cell phone while driving. The brain somehow is unable to take in and process visual information the same way whilst you are concentrating and communicating over the phone. It just cannot be done whether your an Einstein or not...

A leading US safety body has called for all mobile phones to be banned in cars after more than 3000 deaths were attributed to distracted drivers in the States last year.

"No call. No text. No update. Is worth a human life," says National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairwoman Deborah Hersman.

Finally, empirical proof you can blame chatty 20-somethings for stop-and-go traffic on the way to work.

A new study confirms that the reaction time of cell phone users slows dramatically, increasing the risk of accidents and tying up traffic in general, and when young adults use cell phones while driving, they're as bad as sleepy septuagenarians.

"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone," said University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer. "It's like instantly aging a large number of drivers."

The study was announced today and is detailed in winter issue of the quarterly journal Human Factors.

Strayer and his colleagues have been down this road before. In 2001, they found that even hands-free cell phone use distracted drivers. In 2003 they revealed a reason: Drivers look but don't see, because they're distracted by the conversation. The scientists also found previously that chatty motorists are less adept than drunken drivers with blood alcohol levels exceeding 0.08.

 The question I pose is why why is communicating without notice on a piece of technology so alluring.  Is it addiction what is it.  Why we can go up to someone anytime and chat but we don't.  In fact if more of us did that the world would be a better place.  there would be less loneliness in the world. probably less suicides and depression.  Yet we make ourselves available 24/7 to the slave we call a mobile phone.  Why even people who are sleeping during the night leave there phones on.  What is it do they have really a dying grandmother who would need to reach them at any time.  I would guess not rather my guess is tht the phone gives one a kind of power to intrude In on someone else whenever we want whenever we desire.  The flip side of course is that in doing so we must do the same.  Our privacy is exposed. Just like on the computer really.  Except the one good thing about the computer is it does not ring with those ghastly ring tones...

 Where are the psychologists and social researchers when you need one.  What is this phenomenon I have just described?  Why is it that we are now all hooked on cell phones.  The sleeping giant in all this is whether we can get brain damage form radiation whilst making calls.  A couple of studies have cleared the cell phone companies such as Nokia and Motorola but what is the truth on the issue.  Maybe down the track in years to come there will be an epidemic of brain related illnesses...