NTSB absolute cell phone ban too extreme

A deadly pileup of two school buses, a pickup truck and a tractor truck, along with two dead and 38 injured. All caused by one reckless driver texting while driving.

On Aug. 5, 2010, a 19-year-old driver plowed into a tractor truck on an interstate highway near Gray Summit, Mo. Immediately, two school buses then crashed into the wreckage, injuring 38 students and ultimately killing a bus driver and the texting driver. In the pictures following the accident, the driver’s pickup truck is nearly unrecognizable, seen as a crushed ball of gray sheet metal sandwiched between a tractor truck and a school bus.

This incident, along with numerous other deadly crashes caused by phones, prompted the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to call for a national ban on the use of cell phones and texting devices while driving. However, this proposed cell phone and texting law is quite unnecessary and excessive.

If this ban is signed into law, it would outlaw all non-emergency phone calls and texts by all vehicular operators. It would even apply to hands-free devices, only allowing devices installed in the vehicle by the manufacturer. In addition, the board also called on wireless companies to create new technology that would disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is moving.

Banning the use of cell phones and texting while driving is understandable, but the NTSB goes too far when it suggests banning even hands-free devices.

The danger of using hands-free devices is equivalent to talking to another passenger in the vehicle. If the ban were to encompass hands-free devices, then it would also have to ban changing radio stations or talking with passengers, since these actions are arguably just as dangerous as using a hands-free device in a vehicle.

Furthermore, there would be no way for the driver to use his or her phone in the event of an emergency, due to the proposed phone-disabling technology. If the technology is installed with a bypass route, the driver could just as easily abuse this privilege, rendering phone disabling technology useless and an unnecessary cost.

The easiest solution is to increase education and law enforcement, as well as passing a more realistic cell phone use law. If a national ban were to be passed, it should ban all non-emergency cell phone use for the driver, while allowing hands-free devices.

Furthermore, a more efficient way for the government to stop these careless drivers is to launch a larger education campaign to further teach citizens the dangers of texting while driving.

State governments also need to do a much better job enforcing the cell phone laws. This would include informing the police force to be more wary of individuals using phones while driving, as well as increasing the punishments for these offenders. By doing this, the government could lower the occurrences of cell phone-related accidents significantly.