Kauaians love their cell phones. They use them on the streets, in stores and at the stores. They even answer the call in a movie theater. “I think Kaua’i does have an unusually high penetration” of cell-phone users. A lot
Kauaians love their cell phones.
They use them on the streets, in stores and at the stores.
They even answer the call in a movie theater.
“I think Kaua’i does have an unusually high penetration” of cell-phone users. A lot of people use it s their primary means of communication,” said Thomas Noyes, a marketing official for Cingular Wireless on Kaua’i.
All of those users may sometimes be irritating to those forced to listen to one-sided conversations, but it isn’t dangerous.
There is one way that Kauai’s love affair with the wireless telephone dovetails with a growing national and international problem, however: Talking on a cell phone while driving.
The National Police Agency of Japan recently reportred that in 1997, Japanese drivers talking on cell phones were involved in 2,297 accidents, which resulted in 3,000 serious injuries and at least 25 deaths.
A more recent study on road safety in South Africa discovered that one of every four serious car crashes there is cell-phone related. Elsewhere:
– In Canada, a recent study conducted by professors at the University of Toronto followed 699 drivers who were involved in serious accidents while driving and talking on a cell phone. That study concluded that talking on a cell phone while driving greatly increases the risk of an accident.
– Portugal has banned cell phones for people driving a car.
– Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary and Slovenia require motorists to use free hand sets.
A recent article in that most respected domestic scientific journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, connected the use of cell phones behind the wheel to a fourfold increase in accidents.
New York isn’t getting the busy signal. The Empire State has banned the use of cell phones while driving. The law goes into effect Nov. 1.
Locally, cellular companies are trying to be proactive on the safety issue.
“What we tell our customers is that their safety and the safety of others is of paramount importance,” Cingular’s Noyes said.
He said customers are advised that if they receive a call and need to talk, they “should pull off the road in a safe spot.”
“Otherwise there are simple things they can do,” he continued. “They can let their passenger answer the call, or rely on voice-mail services so they don’t miss the call. The first responsibility is to operate your vehicle in a responsible manner.”
Two national lawmakers proposed anti-cell-phone-while- driving legislation last May in Congress. But cellular communications firms are fighting a national safety attempt.
“Even the National Traffic Safety Administration said it should best be left to states,” Dee Yankoskie, a spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, told CNN.
Congress didn’t pass any legislation this year.
Canada has lumped cell phones in with other finable offenses. A driver cited for driving while talking on a cell phone, eating, reading, applying makeup or sorting through CD collections (another serious cause of distraction-related accidents) is subject to a $325 fine and demerits that could lead to the loss of driving privileges.
The experts disagree on what makes cell phone usage dangerous. Some say it’s the physical act of dialing that causes the accident, while others say it is the entire distracting operation, including getting engrossed in conversation and losing awareness of the world outside the vehicle.
Noyes pointed out that cell phones are not the only distraction that leads to accidents. His viewpoint is seconded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which reported that 10.3 percent of all fatal crashes were caused by driver distraction. The impediments to good driving included lighting cigarettes, eating sandwiches, applying makeup, selecting CDs, writing memos and talking on a cell phone.
Cell phones were directly blamed, according to that study, for 1.5 percent of all fatal accidents.
But cell phones are taking a possibly disproportionate share of the heat, and Noyes thinks the problem may be a visual one.
“You can see them with the phone up to their heads. You can’t see somebody sorting through CDs on their lap,” he said.
There is one obvious benefit of being on a cell phone when an accident happens. Legal experts say that cellular phone records are so precise it is relatively easy during litigation for attorneys to obtain very detailed records of the use of the cell phone in the vehicle. These records usually contain the actual times of the calls and where the phone was during the call.
And newspapers are full of stories concerning people trapped in their cars by natural or human disaster, who summon their own rescuers on their cell phones.
Cingular is offering a free 90-minute course – including getting the most out of your wireless phone – on Sept. 12 at Cingular’s office at 3-3277 Kuhio Hwy.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
