Cell Phone Use While Driving – Another Kind of DUI

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By Betsy Weaver, Ed.D., and Rachel Hamburger

How many times have you driven into your child’s school drop-off lot while juggling a cell phone against your ear? Or seen another parent driver doing the same, as swarms of kids exit from cars and head across the lot into the school building?

Cell phone use has exploded in the United States, with statistics revealing that the number of people using a cell phone has grown from 4.3 million to more than 134.5 million in the last decade. The technology has great advantages – and serious problems. Using a cell phone is a dangerous distraction, especially while driving.

Two years ago, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University randomly videotaped drivers and found that 1 in 3, or 33 percent of all drivers observed, used a cell phone while driving. It has become a way of life for many of us, and we don’t want to believe that it’s dangerous. But research – and car accidents blamed on cell phone use – suggest otherwise.