Texting While Driving

This paper will address the concerns in our society about driving while using a cell phone. Both calling and texting others while operating a vehicle can impair the driver to make critical decisions while driving. Out there on the road there is minimal time to make decisions that could change one’s life. Attitudes of cell phone use from adults and young adults will be discussed. There is also research to suggest that even the presence of a cell phone can be distracting to drivers. The ethical dilemma of banning cell phone use will be analyzed and how my personal experience has helped me weigh in on the issue.

Driving while using your cell phone is a difficult task. Focusing on the road and on the cell phone is not easy to do. Restricting one of your hands to the cell phone is dangerous as well. If something were to happen suddenly, defending yourself in the car is much more challenging with one hand as opposed to two. It is desirable to prohibit the use of cell phones while driving to

protect the other drivers and ensure safe roads to drive on.
The question of whether cell phone use should be banned while driving has been along for as long as cell phones have been around. At first, the debate was much opinionated but now there is research to allow for an informed decision to be made. Michael W. Eysenck cited a study by Redelmeier and Tibshirani (1997) in his book The Fundamentals of Cognition: “the likelihood of an accident was 4.3 times greater when drivers used a cell phone (whether hand-held of hands-free)” (Eysenck, 2012). What is interesting is that it did not matter whether the cell phone was hand-held or hands-free. People think that using a hands-free cell phone is essentially a non-risk behavior, but this is not the case. It is just as dangerous to use a hands-free device. This is evidence to support the prohibition of cell phone use while driving. If everyone is using cell phones, then there will be 4.3 times more accidents.
Multitasking is the name of the process that is occurring when one attempts to operate a car and talk on their cell phone. In our busy society, we like to multitask. There is a lot going on in everyone’s lives with many things on their to-do list. We have the feeling that there are not enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks we have. Most of us feel swamped with things to do so the best way to go about managing all of things that are on our plates is to multitask. The multitude of multitasking has only become this prevalent in modern times. Cell phones have made it possible to communicate of the go in a way that our grandparents have never experiences. Multitasking is a time-saver, but it can come with a price when mistakes are made such as an accident while driving.
When you use your cell phone and you drive you are impairing your attention to the road.

Because you are in another world while talking on your cell phone, you can’t clearly focus on what the other drivers are doing. In an analysis on 33 studies, it was found that “reaction time to events (e.g., onset of brake lights on the car in front) increased by 250 ms compared to no-phone control conditions” (Eysenck, 2012). 250 milliseconds is not a lot of time. One quarter of a second is not slow enough for us to even perceive. A quarter of a second difference can cause a car driving 50 mph to stop an extra 18 feet later (Eysenck, 2012). That 18 feet can be the difference in hitting the car in front of you and not. Fender-benders are not life threatening, but they cause a lot of problems for both of the involved cars. People are not particularly wishing for their car to be hit by another so it would make sense for us to ban the use of cell phones so that we can limit this from

happening.
In our modern society, cell phone use is integrating into everything. Our entire lives revolve our phones. Whether we use our phones to google the score of last night’s game, check our social media, or e-mail our boss at work, cell phones are an integral part of daily life. Younger generations are being exposed to cell phone at a much younger age than we were. Jenna Trisko & F. Richard Ferraro published a study in The Association of Behavior Analysis International in 2014 in which they asked both younger and older adults about their attitudes towards driving and cell phone use. This study was produced by using a questionnaire that covered both background information and attitudes towards driving and cell phone use. It comes as no surprise that older adults recognize the distractions and possible risks to using cell phones while driving more than young adults (Trisko & Ferraro). They also concluded that young adults “are more likely to report that cell phone benefits do not outweigh their disadvantages” (Trisko & Ferraro). This is somewhat upsetting considering that people are being exposed to cell phones at a younger age than ever before. It is likely that the younger generations will associate cell phone use while driving as less of a risk than the current young adults.
Luckily many states in the US have put together laws that ban the use of cell phones while driving. It is evident that using your cell phone while driving will distract you and slow down your reaction time. Slowing down reaction time while driving will increase your risk of getting into an accident. These accidents that cause many deaths per year could be easily avoided if cell phone use while driving was put to rest. It is our responsibility as a society to try to lower the amount of lives lost to reckless drivers using their cell phone when they shouldn’t be.
When there are more accidents, more people will die or become injured and more money will be spent by insurance companies to pay for the damages on the cars. As a society, it would be more beneficial to ban cell phone use while driving. We will save lives and money by banning the use of cell phones. It just makes sense that we ban a thing that will protect people and save some money in the process. There is a moral obligation to protect innocent people from future accidents that would be caused by someone driving while using their cell phone.
Using a cell phone while driving can clearly be a distraction. It is easy for most of use to understand why that would be so. Thornton et al. suggested in 2014 that even the mere presence of a cell phone can be distracting in tasks that require a large amount of attention (i.e. driving). The idea of the cell phone and the social relationships it represents can diminish attention either at work or just in a social interaction with another person (Thornton et al). I can think of many times in which I am spending time with a friend and their mind leaves the room when their cell phone goes off. When you are looking at your cell phone to write a text or look at some pictures of Instagram, your attention is taken away from the room and into the phone. This causes me to repeat myself multiple times and can affect the relationship.
These ideas can be paired with driving in that just have the cell phone’s ringer on can affect the attention while driving. Whether you answer the phone/text while driving, hearing it go off along can make your thoughts wander and tempt you to use that phone while driving. Research suggests that using your phone while walking can even lower your situational awareness. We think that walking is mostly a riskless activity, but it can be dangerous if a cell phone is in use and attention to the immediate world around you is low.
Knowing that even the presence of the cell phone can distract somebody makes a stronger case for banning cell phone use while driving. It would be beneficial to create these strong anti-cell-phone-use laws sooner than later as many younger people become attached to their phones. I am surprised at how often I must tell my peers to put their cell phones down while they are driving. I assumed it was common sense to not use a cell phone while driving, but many of my peers don’t have a clear understand of the risks involved in distracted driving. Unfortunately, I have heard far too many stories about accidents caused by cell phone use. My friend was rear ended (luckily not harmed) but another driver who was using their cell phone. It is often that we forget that accidents like this happen every day because of distracted driving.
When operating a vehicle, there is minimal time to make decisions that will help you stay safe and avoid accidents. Unfortunately, there is an immense amount of pressure to multitask in our society. Many young people are using their phones while driving and do not think there is a large risk associated with the behavior. This is discerning as more young people are attached to their phones in a way not previously seen in history. The mere presence of a cell phone can distract one from work or other social situations. While spending time with others, excessive cell phone use can turn you into a brick wall that cannot take in outside information.
It is our moral obligation to have strict cell phone laws in cars. Driving a vehicle has a dangerous risk that many of us forget. Reducing the use of cell phones while driving will make our roads safer for all of us. We should not feel afraid to tell the individual driving you to put away their phone. Creating laws that reduce the use of cell phones is important and should be implemented sooner than later to ensure the safety of our drivers.
References
Eysenck, M. W. (2012). Fundamentals of Cognition (2nd ed.). New York: Psychology Press.
Thornton, B., Faires, A., Robbins, M., & Rollins, E. (2014). The mere presence of a cell phone may be distracting: Implications for attention and task performance. Social Psychology, 45(6), 479-488.
Trisko, J., & Ferraro, F. R. (2014). Younger and older adults’ opinions on driver distractions and potential cellular phone laws. The Psychological Record, 64(3), 503-507.