Eye on Trucking: Will all cell phones in vehicles be banned? If drivers don’t wise up

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

8/27/2009

It’s the latest hot topic.

Distracted driving.

And what causes distracted driving has gone full circle, as the saying goes.

Used to be, we were distracted by something outside the vehicle.

You know, the blond or blonde (let’s be fair, it worked both ways), the jazzy sports car, the snappy billboard.

Now, the primary distraction seems to be a small handheld device — the cell phone, and more specifically the ability to send and receive e-mails and text messages.

Now days, almost everyone has a cell phone, including young children not even old enough to write in cursive.

Watch a commercial for any mobile phone vendor and notice how they play up the family aspect.

And now the concern about using those little devices while driving has reached the highest office in the land.

President Barack Obama has called for a summit on distracted driving.

Most of the emphasis has been on texting, which seems to be the latest craze, made affordable by mobile phone companies that offer lucrative add-ons to cell phone contracts that make texting cheap.

A poll on our Web site, thetrucker.com, recently asked truckers about what they see on the road related to texting.

About half of the respondents said they frequently saw drivers texting while the vehicle was in motion.

A few respondents noted that they saw more texting by four-wheeler drivers than truckers.

Seems that most of the recent attention was sparked by a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study funded by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that showed when drivers of heavy trucks texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting.

Dialing a cell phone and using or reaching for an electronic device increased risk of collision about six times in cars and trucks, the study showed.

Duh.

And we had to be told that looking down at a keypad and not at the road was dangerous?

A few days ago, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood weighed in on the situation on his daily blog.

“Distracted driving is dangerous driving,” the headline read.

Duh.

The point we want to make is this: cell phones are a wonderful invention when used properly.

But we have no business reading or sending e-mails or texting while in motion.

“We all know texting while driving is dangerous — and I promise you we’re going to do something about it so that responsible drivers don’t have worry every time they, or a loved one, gets on the road,” LaHood wrote in his blog.

And he’s right on target.

If we don’t stop this practice, the next step may be banning the use of cell phones for any reason while a vehicle is in motion.

*                                               *                                               *

Interstate 40 is one of the most heavily-traveled east-west corridors in the country, and as such, there has always been a premium on truck parking along that route.

Some states are trying to help.

We noticed the other day that the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department has erected signs at the entrances to at least one former weigh station on I-40 just west of Little Rock.

We passed there about 7:30 one morning, and on both sides of the interstate, the parking area was still pretty much full.

We also noticed one other thing.

Trash on the ground.

Truckers have long begged for more parking areas other than at truck stops and travel centers.

Let’s not abuse what we’ve been given.

Put trash in the receptacles provided.

The parking place you save may be your own.

Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at editor@thetrucker.com.

Follow The Trucker on Twitter at www.twitter.com/truckertalk.