Posted By shivani on May 23, 2006

Traffic accident RISKS while using a cellular phone

According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine,
the risk of having a traffic accident while using a cellular phone is the same as that of having an accident while driving drunk. Cell phone users who talk while driving are four to five hundred percent more likely to get into traffic accidents than those who do not.

Another study (Violanti, 1998, case-control study of data from 223,137 traffic crashes in Oklahoma from 1992 – 1995) found a nine-fold increase in the risk of traffic accident fatality given the use of a cellular telephone.

Japan banned driving while using a cell phone after a study found the number of traffic accidents related to the phones increased by 11 percent from 1997 to 1998. In the first month after the law went into effect, the number of accidents caused by drivers using cell phones fell by about 75 percent.

Australia, Spain, Israel, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Chile, Switzerland, Great Britain, Singapore, Taiwan, Sweden, Japan, and Austria have passed similar bans.

Last year I was a passenger in a vehicle that rolled over at interstate highway speed, due to the driver being engaged in a business call on his phone. We both walked away from the scene with no major injuries, but my skull bones had become jammed together and several treatments by an osteopath were required to set me straight and end the head, ear and neck pain that began a few days after the accident.

If we had not been wearing seat belts, I have no doubt the outcome would not have been so good. As it is, we were darned lucky.

I now refuse to ride with a driver on the phone. If I’m going to be a passenger with someone, I discuss it before we depart. (In fact, I establish that NOBODY will be using a phone in the car, as the radiation bounces back from the frame of the vehicle, creating a microwave oven effect.)

The next time you think you need to make a call while driving, ask yourself first: “Is it to die for?”

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