Thursday, January 15, 2009

National Safety Council wants to ban drivers from using cell phones, PERIOD.


The Council states that drivers using cell phones are as dangerous as drunk drivers. This is hard to believe but when you refer to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis who put these figures out, it kind of makes you think... 6 percent of all crashes are caused by cell phone use which is equivalent to 636,000 crashes, 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths each year, plus a financial cost of $43 billion! I did not know it was this bad! They also mentioned that research is finding that hands-free cell phones have not improved the crashes issue at all. As a matter of fact, hands-free cell phones gives the driver a sense of security and therefore makes them make even more cell phone calls while driving. This is a very serious problem and they aim to ban ALL cell phone use from drivers. The National Safety Council mentioned that it took many years to pass the seat belt laws and drunk driving laws. Some states passed the laws and others eventually followed. The law against cell phone use by drivers might take years but they believe their goal to stop cell phone driver crashes, will happen sooner or later.

Well I don't know if forbidding cell phone use while driving law is going to happen, especially when kids might want to contact a parent picking them up from school, etc... But ANOTHER issue lately against cell phone is something that was talked about years ago and has resurfaced, which is that they may cause brain tumors. Studies are beginning to show up where tumors are appearing near the ear of some patients that use cell phones frequently. Manufacturers have always posted in their manuals to keep cell phones a certain distance from the ear, but most people use the phones right against their ears... This is believed to be worse for children's brains, that are less developed.

Hmmm, makes you think twice before using a cell phone!

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