News tagged with 'Cell Phones'

Looking at collision data in three states and the District of Columbia after hand-held phone bans were put into place, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finds no difference in the crash rate. The results are perplexing in that other studies have shown distracted driving presents a four-fold increase in the risk of collision and injuries.

Expect new models of autos to increasinigly allow drivers and passengers to connect to the Internet for commerce and pleasure, but at what cost to safety?

In a landmark long-term study, the World Health Organization (WHO) is about to announce that long-term cell phone use is linked to a higher risk of developing brain cancer.

The Distracted Driving Summit has resulted in President Obama signing an executive order that bans 4.5 million federal employees and the military from texting and driving. Truckers are not included at this time.

Major automakers expressed support Wednesday for banning drivers from text messaging and using hand-held mobile phones while operating a vehicle.

Legislation introduced Wednesday would withhold federal highway funds from states that do not ban texting while driving, known to be more distracting than driving under the influence. States would lose 25 percent of the federal highway funds, until the funds were depleted, if they failed to enact the ban.  

When Boston trolley operator Aiden Quinn ran into a trolley ahead of him last May, he admitted he was texting his girlfriend.  Today the 24-year-old was arraigned and could spend three years in prison for gross negligence operating a train.

The National Safety Council is advocating a total ban on cell phone use while driving, saying it is dangerous and leads to fatalities. A study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimates cell phone use while driving accounts for 6 percent or 636,000 of all automobile crashes, 330,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths in the U.S. every year.

The digital age of teenage flirting is called “sexting” (instead of “texting”) and it involves sending nude or semi-nude photos from cell phone to cell phone. The troubling combination of teenagers acting impulsively and provocatively is not new, but the accessibility to technology is.

Emerging technology stops cell phone calls coming in while you drive. The software senses you are in motion and retains your calls and text messages for later. It has immediate application for parents, but also corporations that want to cut down on the thousands of highway deaths each year due to inattention.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirms today that the train engineer of a Metrolink commuter train sent his last text message 22 seconds before he ran head-on into a freight train, killing 25 passengers aboard. 

Teen texting while driving is more distracting than cell phone use, and equal to driving while intoxicated DUI, but few laws exist to address the problem. In the absense of legislation, schools and parents need to stop driving while texting or DWT.

Danish scientists have noticed more behavioral problems among children whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy.  Despite the controversy on how much - scientists agree that cell phones emit radiation. To err on the side of caution, there are some simple ways you can reduce your exposure, including something called a ferrite bead. 

Electromagnetic radiation may be able to penetrate a child and teens' brain more easily than an adults, so today a major cancer researcher issued a warning memo to 3,000 employees to limit their cell phone use, and to have children use them for emergencies only.

According to a poll given Tuesday, August 7, 91 % of Americans agree that text messaging while driving is just as dangerous as driving after having a few alcoholic beverages, but 57% admit that they do it. The H