Name
Composition I
Mr. Teacher
17 Sep. 2014
Banning Cell Phones on the Road
You are driving along the highway when, BAM ! A car rams into the side of yours. As you look up what do you see? A man texting on his cell phone totally oblivious to the world around him. As he gets out of his car he says he was only looking at it for a couple seconds, but thats all it takes to cause a very fatal crash. Texting as well as taking on the phone is a form of distracted driving and greatly increases the risk of having an accident. Your mind is not focused on the road or other cars but your cell phone or the conversation you are having on it. Out of every 1,000 car fatalities 450 of them are caused by using cell phones(Glazer). Thats almost half, which to most people is not shocking considering the role our cell phones have in our lives today, but it still needs to be stopped from reaching a higher number. We were outraged when airbags killed 120 children and small women, and even more when tires killed 150 people(Glazer). Both are a vital part of a car, but cell phones are not and we do nothing about the thousands of people they injure. Although banning cell phone usage while driving will not stop accidents completely there is a good chance it will drop the number of cell phone related fatalities greatly. An example of this can be seen when Japan banned any handheld phone usage during driving, as a result the accidents due to phone usage dropped by 75 percent(Glazer).
But others wonder if a ban is really needed. Imagine you are driving home from work and a family member is involved in an accident but you are driving and unable to pull over to answer your phone then by the time you have gotten home it is too late. Cell phones in cars are needed for emergencies, conducting business, or just calling home to see if you need to pick up some groceries. It is estimated that without being able to use your phone in your car it will cost 200 dollars per household or 24 billion...