Ggggrrrr!

People using their cell phones while driving, annoy me. Particularly those that don't use hands free sets.
This week a police officer was killed in Houston by a man driving an SUV who was most likely on the phone. However, even if it isn't proven that it was ultimately the phone that distracted the driver, studies have shown the negative impact phoning has on one's driving. Hence the article below. I find the studies mentioned in the article, interesting and enlightening.

• Hand on wheel, mind elsewhere
• Cell phone use is driving the safety debate
  By MIKE TOLSON
  Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

• They have become a staple of modern life, an electronic umbilical cord that ties us to everyone we know. And they are the scourge of driving safety advocates everywhere.
  Cellular telephones, now considered essential even for middle school students, often are possible factors in traffic accidents, including the one that took the life of Deputy Constable Jason Norling on Monday as he stood by the side of Westpark Tollway writing a speeding ticket.
• "It's really not controversial anymore, in terms of drivers being very impaired," said David Strayer, a University of Utah psychiatry professor who authored a study that showed drivers talking on cell phones perform as poorly as those who drive under the influence of alcohol. "People become pretty bad drivers when they are talking on the phone," said Strayer, whose study referred to "inattention blindness." "The truth is they are four times more likely to be in an accident," he said. "I was with a guy that picked up his cell phone as he was driving, and he went sailing through a school crossing that had a crossing guard and a child in the intersection. He swore that he did not."
• Unlike European countries, which have mostly outlawed cell phone usage while driving, the U.S. has tiptoed around prohibition. Only four states and the District of Columbia ban it. A number of states restrict phone use among drivers under 18 or require that users employ hands-free devices. Once thought of as the cure for driver distraction, headsets or other hands-free devices saw their value placed into serious question by a major 2005 study done by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. The study concluded that the conversation itself, not the device, was distracting, and headsets provide only an illusion of greater safety.
• And scientists who probe the human brain have even figured out why: That portion of the brain that is responsible for an engaged conversation overwhelms the part that controls visual acuity.
• Put simply, the more we talk, the less we see. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have proved it with experiments involving people whose brains are being scanned with magnetic resonance imaging machines.
• Whether Norling's death translates into any momentum for change at a statewide level is unclear. The day after his death, Houston police were occupied with the immediate task of completing their investigation.
  Ask any police officer, however, and a clear picture emerges that people talk and drive far more than they ever drink and drive. Anyone who doubts it should spend a few moments at a busy traffic corner, said officer A.N. Taylor, with HPD's accident division.
  "Watch how many people are on the phone when they drive by," he said. "But again, it's a matter of proving it."
• Police say advances in cell phone technology mean motorists can now send text messages and check their e-mail, all while trying to avoid other drivers.
  "They forget they're driving," said HPD accident investigator J.A. Mushinski. "A lot of people can't have divided attention (and) can't do two things at once."
  Taylor said that a Harris County grand jury likely will decide whether the GMC Yukon driver who struck and killed the deputy constable will face prosecution. Seconds before he hit Norling, authorities suspect the SUV driver was talking on his cell phone and also may have become distracted by an insect flying around the vehicle. The phone has been confiscated, and the driver's phone records will be subpoenaed, police said.
• Safety advocates say the time has come to ban the use of phones by drivers.
  "It's a major factor in crashes," said Lisa Lewis, founder of the Partnership for Safe Driving. "We don't need any more studies to tell us that. We've got plenty of victims to tell us that."
• Bills to require the use of hands-free cell phone devices while driving have been offered in the Legislature since at least 2003, but all have died, mostly without creating much of a stir. Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, won committee approval of the latest offering, SB154, this past spring, but didn't have enough votes to win approval by the full Senate. A companion bill in the House by Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, never got a hearing.
  The phone industry, meanwhile, is a major contributor to legislators and other state officeholders. In the 2005-06 election cycle alone, the political action committees of four phone companies with wireless services gave more than $1 million to legislative candidates of both parties, the governor, lieutenant governor, other state officials, political parties and related political committees.
• Wentworth believed much of the opposition to cell phone restrictions is from consumers.
  "A lot of people take the attitude that we're micro-managing people's conduct and interfering with Texans' private lives," he said.
• The wireless phone industry's trade association said it usually takes no position on measures before state legislatures. But Coleman and Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who didn't get a hearing on a similar bill in 2005, said phone companies share the blame, although they do their work quietly. "I had the sense that the industry was quietly working behind the scenes to keep the bill from being heard in 2005," Ellis said. "They (phone lobbyists) carry a lot of weight. If the industry had gotten behind it, it certainly would have passed."
• Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said no one from the phone industry talked to him about Wentworth's bill and said he wasn't influenced by campaign contributions.
  "While I think hands-free cell phones would be safer, there were a lot of Texans who thought this legislation was meddling with their individual liberties and freedom," Dewhurst said. "What I recall is that Sen. Wentworth didn't have the votes to bring it up on the Senate floor."
• Chronicle reporters Clay Robison and Mike Glenn contributed to this report.