[Grovenet] Which is worse, driving drunk or on the cell phone?

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

There's an interesting report in the BBC news today accompanying the new
rules in the U.K. that now mandate new stiff fines and points toward losing
one's driver's license for using a cell phone while driving.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/) 

The report assessed the impact upon using a cell phone while driving. 

No big surprise: driving while holding a cell phone to your ear results in
about a 40% reduction in driving ability!

Of interest to me was the study of hands-free cell phones. They weren't as
bad as a phone held to the ear, but that doesn't make them good either. As
the investigator said, driving while in a hands-free phone conversation was
about the same as driving drunk. 

It begs the question of why we're throwing drunk drivers in jail and
ignoring cell phone drivers. 

They also studied conversations with people in the car. They had very little
effect on the driver, presumably because the passenger was sharing the
driving experience and tuned into the driver's need for attention.

Ron D'Eau Claire