Sobering Statistics About Cell Phone Use While Driving 

What's the truth about using cell phones while driving? Are they merely, as some claim, another unavoidable distraction, like talking to other passengers, eating, or changing the tape or CD? Or are they far more deadly, and costly to drivers and insurance companies alike?

A great number of drivers conduct business for their companies by phone while driving, an activity that has proven costly, both in lives and insurance settlements, driving insurance costs up for all drivers. 

Here are two examples: 

- In 1999, investment giant Salomon Smith Barney paid $500,000 when a Salomon employee using the cell phone while working ran a red light and struck a motorcyclist while looking for a dropped cell phone. 

-The state of Hawaii settled a lawsuit brought by a pedestrian struck by a state employee talking on the cell phone. The pedestrian suffered permanent brain injury. The state has agreed to pay the pedestrian $1.5 million because of the state employee's action.

The Insurance Information Institute says that more and more often, people injured in auto crashes in which the at-fault driver was using a cell phone to discuss business are suing the driver's employer because of the greater likelihood of a 'deep pockets' settlement.  Because of this, many companies have put into effect cell-phone use policies. Some companies permit cell-phone use for business as long as the employee has pulled off the road or into a parking lot; others ban use completely. 

A recent nationwide poll about highway and vehicle safety conducted by Harris Interactive and reported by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, put cell-phone use while driving at the top of the list of concerns, and also revealed that 76 percent of Americans support legislation restricting cell phone use while driving. 

Ten states have so far agreed by imposing restrictions, with the toughest in New York State. In 2001, New Yorkers were banned from using hand-held phones while driving, with fines beginning at $100 for a first violation, going to $200 for the second, and all thereafter ringing in at $500 each. Other states with restrictions in place, according to the NCSL, are: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon and Rhode Island. 

The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, the III reports, has released a study that found six percent of all auto accidents in the U.S. each year are attributable to cell-phone use. That translates to 2,600 fatalities and 330,000 injuries...at a cost of $43 billion dollars.  Echoing the New England Journal of Medicine study is some off-shore intelligence: British insurer Direct Line found that talking on a mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than being drunk behind the wheel