Will banning cell phone while driving help Michigan?

It’s happened to everyone – someone cuts you off in traffic, a vehicle ahead of you swerves to and fro in their lane or someone turns at a corner dangerously slowly.

And as you drive by them, hoping to get away from them as fast as you can, you know why it happened – you can just make out that little black device up to their ear or they’re looking down at. They’re making a call or they’re texting.

Everyone, regardless of their own driving style and habits, knows that’s dangerous, and the National Transportation Safety Board would like that to end.

On December 13 the NTSB recommended that all states ban cell phones and other portable electronic devices while driving and asked states to use advertising campaigns and high-visibility enforcement to get the message across to drivers.

The press release, available at www.ntsb.gov, sites five examples of incidents and accidents, in addition to an August 2010 accident in Grey Summit, Miss., the NTSB’s report of which served as the catalyst for the recommendation.

While this recommendation is intended to prevent potentially catastrophic incidents involving cell phones and laptops from occurring, just Googling “cell phone ban” shows how divided reaction is.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, nine states plus Washington, D.C. and the Virgin Islands prohibit handheld cell phones while driving. Thirty-five states, including Michigan, plus Washington, D.C. and Guam prohibit text messaging for all drivers.

These bans aren’t anything new – Michigan’s ban on texting has been in effect since July 2010. Yet even with over half the nation addressing the problem to some degree, we still see it happen on the roads and hear the horrors of distracted driving on the news.

Getting all states to ban cell phone usage isn’t going to help this problem. If drivers ignore one law, additional laws won’t bring them to their senses.

The issue doesn’t lie with talking and texting on a cell phone being legal but being socially acceptable.

No one finds talking on a phone while walking out in public unacceptable, and, because many of us don’t get from point A to point B by walking, that it’s acceptable to do while driving.

Nobody knows what it would take to make texting while driving or chatting on the phone while driving socially unacceptable, but an NTSB recommendation on it probably won’t.

For example, studies have said that distractions like cell phones can make a driver as dangerous as a drunk driver. Drunk driving is illegal in all 50 states, yet it still happens.

As long as texting or chatting isn’t taken as seriously as drunk driving, you’re better off just keeping your eyes on that weaving car in front of you.