Hands-Free Cellphone Zones Are Increasing

Why Not Just Hang Up the Phone and Drive?

More and more school districts and municipalities are banding together to create "hands-free cell phone only" zones around designated school areas, especially during drop-off and pick-up times. The hands-free cell phone zones are intended to minimize potentially-tragic accidents caused by inattentive drivers (we're not even talking teens here, but rather the parents who yak it up while waiting for their kid in the carpool line).

One recent news report told of a parent who loaded up her child at the end of the school day while talking on her cellphone and then pulled out while talking on the phone--directly into a path of a young bicyclist, striking the child. The mom said she wasn't distracted, but that the bicyclist was crossing in an area that wasn't designated by crosswalks. It's true the 7-year-old wasn't crossing where he was supposed to, but it sure wasn't an infraction worth dying over. Because the area had been designated as a hands-free cell phone zone, she received a ticket. Luckily, the child was scared but was not injured.

Now the hands-free cell phone zones are also being extended into some daycare parking lots as well. Parents who are frantically trying to drop off their child and rush to work on time, or are listening in on a teleconference call while driving their kid to daycare, are undoubtedly distracted. They even use those annoying headsets to keep talking and listening as they walk into their child's classroom, and almost literally push their kid into their drop-off area with a quick kiss or hug. Then, they dash back out to their car and aggressively wheel out of there.

Texting while driving is also becoming a growing problem as well, and like everything else, it certainly isn't just limited to teenage drivers. Nowadays, it seems like everyone is texting and a growing number of normally-responsible adults are trying to multitask their driving with texting "so-called short" replies.

Cell phone usage is certainly become a way of life, and traffic accidents are increasingly attributed to driver distraction. Whether it's mostly harmless accidents like hitting a mailbox to potentially tragic ones like striking a pedestrian, bicyclist, or someone entering or leaving a parking lot, an increasing number of cities and states are considering banning cell phone use by drivers with the exception of hands-free usage. Driving is hard enough with heavy traffic and erratic drivers. Why not just hang up the cellphone and drive?