Gainesville, Ocala, Lake City & Inverness, Florida Accident Attorney and Alachua County DUI Lawyer Blogs

We don't have to wait for it to be law to turn off the cell phone while driving!

The National Safety Council (NSC), the same watchdog consumer group that got us to buckle up our seatbelts and not drive after drinking is now working on banning cell phone use while driving. See, NSC calls for a nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving.  

Currently 5 states and the District of Columbia have partial bans on cell phone use while driving, meaning only hand-held.  Sadly, Florida is not one of them.  In fact Florida has no bans on cell phone use at all; it is even legal for school bus drivers to be celling, and even texting while driving our children to and from school.  17 States plus DC ban mobile phone use while driving a school bus and also for novice drivers.

Alachua County has no say in this matter because Florida is one of 8 states that have laws that prohibit local jurisdictions from enacting restrictions on cell phone use.

According to the Governor's Highway Safety Council, 80 percent of crashes are related to driver inattention and the #1 culprit is cell phones.  Drivers who use cell phones are four times more likely to be in a crash while using a cell phone.

It is time for us to put pressure on our legislature and stop the #1 distraction of drivers' on the road today, cell phone use while driving.  The facts are in, we all know it is a distraction, we have even heard about accidents that have occurred while on the cell phone, but we don't want to stop.  In the least we can educate ourselves, our novice drivers and all of our loved ones about the dangers of celling, hand-free and hand-held, and of course texting while driving.  Even though it may be legal does not mean it is safe.  

In the old days, no one wore seatbelts; many cars didn't even have them.  The country wised up and now buckleing up is the law.  It is now time for Florida and this country to protect our citizens and taxpayers and enact nationwide bans on cell phone use while driving.

As a personal injury/accident lawyer I see the results of accidents daily and publicly suggested months ago that we needed to take this issue seriously, in blogs during the aftermath of the school bus fatality in Marion County.

 I am glad that the NSC is working to make this a safer country, however, we can begin with each one of us turning off the cell phone while driving and start today, we do not have to wait for it to be the law.  Remember, it is a brain problem, not a hand problem, so hand-free celling is just as dangerous too.  Be safe and turn it off while driving!

We teach our children to buckle up, not drink and drive, and now we need to make sure they know to not drive and chat, and we need to take the lead by setting an example and we need to start today.

Here are our previous blogs on this topic.  

http://www.meldonlaw.com/blog/operation-bluebird-is-commendable-but-we-need-more.cfm

http://www.meldonlaw.com/blog/we-need-to-get-madd-about-driving-and-cell-phone-use.cfm

Other resources:

Governor's Highway Safety Association 
http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html

National Safety Counsel Fact-Sheet
http://www.nsc.org/resources/issues/factsheet.aspx

Studies on cell phone use
http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/