TalkingWhileDriving
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Bluetooth headset sales booming after legislation changes in CA and WA
Talking while driving just got a little more expensive on the west coast. Legislation went into effect last month in California and Washington requiring the use a headset of some sort. California's law was passed way back in 2006, yet most would-be good citizens waited until the absolute last minute to comply, with sales of Bluetooth headsets surging to four-times the national average in the months prior according to the NPD Group. Still, 7,182 citations were handed to naughty Californians in July. Up north only 100 were nabbed, as Washingtonian drivers can't be pulled over unless they commit some other violation as well, making headset use there a little more ... optional, so long as you lay off the throttle, Speed Racer.
More states cracking down on phone use while driving
Add Oregon and Washington to the list of states that now officially frown on yapping while driving. Oregon's sporting the less restrictive legislation of the two Pacific Northwestern states, preventing teens from using cellphones in the car as of January 1. Washington already banned the idiotic practice of texting while driving last year, and will ban handsets altogether (except for handsfree devices) this July. Of course, with lawyers eternally in the mix, let's just hope the fine lawmakers out there have dotted their I's and crossed their T's lest these new laws spend more time in court than they do on the road.
Study confirms the obvious: chatting behind the wheel is dangerous
A new study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virgina Tech Transportation Institute using vehicle-embedded sensors and videocams has confirmed what most of us already knew, which is that talking on your cellphone make you more susceptible to getting in an accident. Of the 82 crashes and 761 "near misses" experienced by 241 drivers over the course of the yearlong study, dialing and talking on a cellphone were the second and third most common causes, respectively, after drowsiness. Moreover, dialing a phone nearly triples your chances of getting into an accident, concluded the study, which showed that driving distractions in general played a role in almost 80% of the accidents recorded. If proof like this doesn't shock legislators into addressing this problem, our only hope seems to be voluntary measures adopted by wireless carriers, such as the clever audible stoplight alert system we brought you yesterday.
