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New System Detects Calls While Driving
Gary writes "Talking on your cellphone while driving isn't a crime in most states, but it should be. Studies have shown that people who drive and talk are many times more likely to have an accident. A new company is releasing a device to automatically detect drivers talking on their cell phones. Instead of police officers needing to observe a cellphone in use, the system automatically detects a cell phone call and records which car was making the call." The article is fairly light on details, but it would be interesting to see how the system differentiates from a driver talking on a cell phone versus a mere passenger.
It has been hashed out and reached the wrong conclusion, several times over, and not only in the post you linked to.
It's the conversation that's providing the distraction, and it doesn't realy matter how you're carrying that conversation, only how much attention you're paying to the conversation as opposed to the road. The only mitigating factor in "conversation with a passenger" is that the passenger you are talking to MIGHT alert you to something you're missing while talking back, while the person you're having aphone conversation just can't possibly do that.
But then again, we're back at "how engaging the conversation is"... and that can be less engaging while talking on the phone ("uh-huh, yea, sure, honey, whatever you say, we'll talk more when I get back home") than a heated argument with somebody on the passenger seat ("what do you mean you're leaving me ? you @#$^#@#@!).
It doesn't matter where the distraction comes from, a phone conversation, a conversation with a passenger, you trying to adjust something (radio, air conditioning, CD player or anything else like that), eating something, reaching for something, anything at all that's causing you to divert attention from the actual driving... it's the PRESENCE of the distraction and its MAGNITUDE that's increasing accident chances, REGARDLESS of the source/type of your distraction.
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