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Well, perhaps it is comforting that these stats are measuring all drivers. If you are cognizant of the fact that you need to concentrate on the road, you are probably doing so better than somebody who has no idea that hands-free operation is that much more risky.
I do not think that banning cell phones is at all politically feasible - it would be similar to declaring alcohol an illegal drug and prohibiting its use again. I think a reasonable solution is to increase the penalties for traffic infringements if it can be demonstrated that you were distracted by a cell phone at the time (i.e., your phone is found with parts of a text message typed, or it can be easily shown that you were talking at the time of the incident.) If a running a traffic light ticket was doubled with the first offense, quadrupled with the second, multiplied by eight with the third, etc., (or jail sentences for vehicular manslaughter were similarly multiplied), then we'd have no prohibition but instead a strong deterrent. You still read in the news sad stories about drunks with multiple offenses, driving without licenses, killing innocent people. You can't stop that with legislation, but with reasonable deterrents perhaps they can be minimized.
As for me, I minimize my hands-free use as much as possible because I do not want to end up hurting somebody else because of something that I have done.
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