TO THE EDITOR:
I am a doctoral student at UNC’s School of Public Health in the department of health behavior. I helped make the case at the Town Council meeting a few months ago for the danger of any cellphone use while driving.
I wanted to respond to a few of the student comments in the article “Students speak out about cellphone ban” published last Wednesday.
One of the students said, “They may as well exclude conversation because that’s a distraction, too.” But when you drive with another person in the car, that person becomes an extra set of eyes. He or she may see things — like someone crossing the street — that you did not initially see because you were distracted.
When you’re on your cellphone alone in your car, there is no one else to pay attention to the road for you. No one else can react but you, and by the time you do, it may be too late.
Another student said the ban doesn’t make much sense. It wasn’t too long ago that people didn’t think a ban on driving while intoxicated made much sense either. It took years for policy to catch up with science.
It turns out, we already know that driving while on your cellphone—even on a hands-free device— is just as dangerous as driving while drunk.
One student said they shouldn’t “spend their time regularizing stuff like that.” So do you think that they shouldn’t spend time regulating drunken drivers either?
Are you okay with the potential loss of life that will result?
