Mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

use while driving is common, but dangerous. Due to the number of accidents that are related to cell phone use while driving, some jurisdictions have made the use of a cell phone while driving illegal. Others have enacted laws to ban handheld mobile phone use, but allow use of a handsfree device. In some cases restrictions are only directed to minors or those who are newly qualified license holders.

Prevalence

The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec

Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec

The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec or SAAQ , is a Quebec crown corporation responsible for licensing drivers and vehicles in the province and providing public auto insurance which insures all drivers, passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists involved in road collisions...

 (SAAQ) conducted a study in 2003. Questionnaires were sent to 175,000 drivers and analysis was done on the 36,078 who responded. The questionnaire asked about driving habits, risk exposure, collisions over the past 24 months, socio-demographic information, and cell phone use. Questionnaires were supported with data from cell phone companies and police crash records. The study found that the overall relative risk

Relative risk

In statistics and mathematical epidemiology, relative risk is the risk of an event relative to exposure. Relative risk is a ratio of the probability of the event occurring in the exposed group versus a non-exposed group....

 (RR) of having an accident for cell phone users when compared to non-cell phone users averaged 1.38 across all groups. When adjusted for kilometers driven per year and other crash risk exposures, RR was 1.11 for men and 1.21 for women. They also found that increased cell phone use correlated with an increase in RR. When the same data were reanalyzed using a Bayesian

Bayes' theorem

In probability theory and applications, Bayes' theorem relates the conditional probabilities P and P. It is commonly used in science and engineering. The theorem is named for Thomas Bayes ....

 approach, the calculated RR of 0.78 for those making less than 1 call/day and 2.27 for those with more than 7 calls/day was similar to cohort analysis.

When the data were reanalyzed using case-crossover analysis, RR was calculated at a much higher 5.13. The authors expressed concern that misclassification of phone calls due to reporting errors of the exact time of the collisions was a major source of bias with all case-crossover analysis of this issue.

In March 2011 a U.S. insurance company, State Farm Insurance

State Farm Insurance

State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....

, announced the results of a study which showed 19% of drivers surveyed accessed the Internet on a smart phone while driving.

As a percentage of distraction-related accidents

In September of 2010, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is an agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, part of the Department of Transportation...

 (NHTSA) released a report on distracted driving

Distracted driving

Distracted driving, a replacement phrase for the more popular terms "texting while driving" and "talking while driving," is what occurs when a driver has something other than driving on his mind. Driving becomes subsequent in importance to another activity that is happening inside the car, truck...

 fatalities for 2009. The NHTSA considers distracted driving to include some of the following as distractions: other occupants in the car, eating, drinking, smoking, adjusting radio, adjusting environmental control, reaching for object in car, and cell phone use. In 2009 in the U.S. there was a reported 5,474 people killed by distracted drivers. Of those 995 were considered to be killed by drivers distracted by cell phones. The report doesn't state whether this under or over represents the level of cell phone use amongst drivers, and whether there is a causal relationship.

A 2003 study of U.S. crash data states that driver inattention is estimated to be a factor in between 20 to 50 percent of all police-reported crashes. Driver distraction, a sub-category of inattention, has been estimated to be a contributing factor in 8 to 13 percent of all crashes. Of distraction-related accidents, cell phone use may range from 1.5 to 5 percent of contributing factors. However, large percentages of unknowns in each of those categories may cause inaccuracies in these estimations. A 2001 study sponsored by The American Automobile Association

American Automobile Association

AAA , formerly known as the American Automobile Association, is a federation of 51 independently operated motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a not-for-profit member service organization with more than 51 million members. AAA provides services to its members such as travel, automotive,...

 recorded "Unknown Driver Attention Status" for 41.5 percent of crashes, and "Unknown Distraction" in 8.6 percent of all distraction related accidents. According to NHTSA, "There is clearly inadequate reporting of crashes".

Currently, "Outside person, object, event" (commonly known as rubbernecking

Rubbernecking

Rubbernecking describes the act of gawking at something of interest. It is often used to refer to drivers trying to view the carnage resulting from a traffic accident. The term refers to the craning of a person's neck in order to get a better view....

) is the most reported cause of distraction-related accidents, followed by "Adjusting radio/cassette/CD". "Using/dialing cell phone" is eighth.
A 2003 study by the U.S. University of Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

 psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 department measured response time, following distance, and driving speed of a control group, subjects at the legal blood alcohol content

Blood alcohol content

Blood alcohol content , also called blood alcohol concentration, blood ethanol concentration, or blood alcohol level is most commonly used as a metric of alcohol intoxication for legal or medical purposes....

 (BAC) limit of 0.08%, and subjects involved in cell phone conversations. Data from the report are listed to the right.

As the study notes; "... this is the third in a series of studies that we have conducted evaluating the effects of cell phone use on driving using the car following procedure (see also Strayer & Drews, 2004; and Strayer et al., 2003). Across these three studies, 120 participants performed in both baseline and cell phone conditions. Two of the participants in our studies were involved in an accident in baseline conditions, whereas 10 participants were involved in an accident when they were conversing on a cell phone." However zero (0) drunk drivers had accidents in any of the tests. When results of this study are taken at face value it suggests that it is actually safer to drive drunk than sober. After controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, the study concluded that cell phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers.

Meta-analyses

A 2005 review by the Hawaiian legislature entitled "Cell Phone Use and Motor Vehicle Collisions: A Review of the Studies" contains an analysis of studies on cell phone/motor vehicle accident causality

Causality

Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....

. A key finding was that: "No studies were found that directly address and resolve the issue of whether a
causal relation exists between cellular telephone use while operating a motor vehicle and motor vehicle collisions."

Meta-analysis by the Canadian Automobile Association

Canadian Automobile Association

The Canadian Automobile Association , commonly known as CAA, is a non-profit federation, founded in 1913, of nine clubs across Canada, providing roadside assistance service, a complete range of auto touring and leisure travel services, insurance services, and member discounts with preferred...

 and the University of Illinois found that response time while using both hands-free and hand-held phones was approximately 0.5 standard deviations higher than normal driving (i.e., an average driver, while talking on a cell phone, has response times of a driver in roughly the 40th percentile).

Arguments from increase in mobile subscription

In the US, the number of cell phone subscribers has increased by 1,262.4% between the years 1985-2008. In approximately the same period the number of crashes has fallen by 0.9% (1995–2009) and the number of fatal crashes fallen by 6.2%. It has been argued that these statistics contradict the claims that mobile use impairs driving performance. Similarly, a 2010 study from the Highway Loss Data Institute published in February 2010 reviewed auto claims from three key states along with Washington D.C. prior to cell phone bans while driving and then after. The study found no reduction in crashes, despite a 41% to 76% reduction in the use of cell phones while driving after the ban was enacted.

Handsfree device

Driving while using a handsfree

Handsfree

Handsfree is an adjective describing equipment that can be used without the use of hands or, in a wider sense, equipment which needs only limited use of hands, or for which the controls are positioned so that the hands are able to occupy themselves with another task without needing to hunt far...

 cellular device is not safer than using a hand held cell phone, as concluded by case-crossover studies. epidemiological, simulation, and meta-analysis. The increased "cognitive workload" involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the increased risk. For example, a Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

 study found that merely listening to somebody speak on a phone caused a 37% drop in activity in the parietal lobe

Parietal lobe

The parietal lobe is a part of the Brain positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe.The parietal lobe integrates sensory information from different modalities, particularly determining spatial sense and navigation. For example, it comprises somatosensory cortex and the...

, where spatial tasks are managed.

The consistency of increased crash risk between hands-free and hand held cell phone use is at odds with legislation in many locations that prohibits hand held cell phone use but allows hands-free. Nevertheless, dialing a cell phone is more distracting than talking on a cell phone, and hands-free devices that offer voice-dialing may reduce or eliminate that increased risk.

Comparisons with passenger conversation

The scientific literature is mixed on the dangers of talking on a cell phone versus those of talking with a passenger. The common conception is that passengers are able to better regulate conversation based on the perceived level of danger, therefore the risk is negligible. A study by a University of South Carolina

University of South Carolina

The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...

 psychology researcher featured in the journal, Experimental Psychology, found that planning to speak and speaking put far more demands on the brain’s resources than listening. Measurement of attention levels showed that subjects were four times more distracted while preparing to speak or speaking than when they were listening. The Accident Research Unit at the University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...

 found that the number of utterances was usually higher for mobile calls when compared to blindfolded and non-blindfolded passengers across various driving conditions. The number of questions asked averaged slightly higher for mobile phone conversations, although results were not constant across road types and largely influenced by a large number of questions on the urban roads.

A 2004 University of Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

 simulation study that compared passenger and cell-phone conversations concluded that the driver performs better when conversing with a passenger because the traffic and driving task become part of the conversation. Drivers holding conversations on cell phones were four times more likely to miss the highway exit than those with passengers, and drivers conversing with passengers showed no statistically significant difference from lone drivers in the simulator. A study led by Andrew Parkes at the Transport Research Laboratory

Transport Research Laboratory

TRL is a British transport consultancy and research organisation based at Wokingham Berkshire with approximately 500 staff. TRL is owned by the Transport Research Foundation , which is overseen by 80 sector members from the transport industry. TRL also own small UK regional offices situated in...

, also with a driving simulator, concluded that hands-free phone conversations impair driving performance more than other common in-vehicle distractions such as passenger conversations. However, some have criticized the use of simulation studies to measure the risk of cell-phone use while driving since the studies may be impacted by the Hawthorne effect

Hawthorne effect

The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.The term was coined in 1950 by...

.

In contrast, the University of Illinois meta-analysis concluded that passenger conversations were just as costly to driving performance as cell phone ones. AAA ranks passengers as the third most reported cause of distraction-related accidents at 11 percent, compared to 1.5 percent for cellular telephones. A simulation study funded by the American Transportation Research Board

Transportation Research Board

The Transportation Research Board is a division of the National Research Council, which serves as an independent adviser to the President, the Congress and federal agencies on scientific and technical questions of national importance...

 concluded that driving events that require urgent responses may be influenced by in-vehicle conversations, and that there is little practical evidence that passengers adjusted their conversations to changes in the traffic. It concluded that drivers' training should address the hazards of both mobile phone and passenger conversations.

Texting

The scientific literature on the dangers of driving while sending a text message from a mobile phone, or texting while driving

Texting while driving

Texting while driving is the act of composing, sending, reading text messages, email, or making other similar use of the web on a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle. The practice has been viewed by many people and authorities as dangerous. It has also been ruled as the cause of some motor...

, is limited. A simulation study at the Monash University

Monash University

Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

 Accident Research Centre has provided strong evidence that both retrieving and, in particular, sending text messages has a detrimental effect on a number of critical driving tasks. Specifically, negative effects were seen in detecting and responding correctly to road signs, detecting hazards, time spent with eyes off the road, and (only for sending text messages) lateral position. Surprisingly, mean speed, speed variability, lateral position when receiving text messages, and following distance showed no difference. A separate, yet unreleased simulation study at the University of Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

 found a sixfold increase in distraction-related accidents when texting.

The low number of scientific studies may be indicative of a general assumption that if talking on a mobile phone increases risk, then texting also increases risk, and probably more so. Market research by Pinger

Pinger

Pinger may refer to:*Ping'er, fictional character in Dream of the Red Chamber*Methylenedioxymethamphetamine*Underwater locator beacon...

, a company selling a voice-based alternative to texting reported that 89% of U.S. adults think that text messaging while driving is "distracting, dangerous and should be outlawed." The AAA

American Automobile Association

AAA , formerly known as the American Automobile Association, is a federation of 51 independently operated motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a not-for-profit member service organization with more than 51 million members. AAA provides services to its members such as travel, automotive,...

 Foundation for Traffic Safety has released polling data that show that 87% of people consider texting and e-mailing while driving a "very serious" safety threat, almost equivalent to the 90% of those polled who consider drunk driving a threat. Despite the acknowledgement of the dangers of texting behind the wheel, about half of drivers 16 to 24 say they have texted while driving, compared with 22 percent of drivers 35 to 44.

Texting while driving received greater attention in the late 2000s, corresponding to a rise in the number of text messages being sent. Over a year approximately 2,000 teens die from texting while driving. The 2008 Will Smith

Will Smith

Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...

 movie Seven Pounds

Seven Pounds

Seven Pounds is a 2008 film, directed by Gabriele Muccino. Will Smith stars as a man who sets out to change the lives of seven people. Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, and Barry Pepper star. The film was released in theaters in the United States and Canada on December 19, 2008, by Columbia Pictures...

deals with Smith's character committing suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 in order to donate his organs

Organ donation

Organ donation is the donation of biological tissue or an organ of the human body, from a living or dead person to a living recipient in need of a transplantation. Transplantable organs and tissues are removed in a surgical procedure following a determination, based on the donor's medical and...

 to help save the lives of seven people to make up for the seven people he killed in a car accident

Car accident

A traffic collision, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction,...

 because he was receiving a text message while he was driving. Texting while driving attracted interest in the media after several highly publicized car crashes were caused by texting drivers, including a May 2009 incident involving a Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 trolley car driver who crashed while texting his girlfriend. Texting was blamed in the 2008 Chatsworth train collision

2008 Chatsworth train collision

The Chatsworth train collision occurred at 16:22 PDT on Friday September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles, California, in the United States...

 which killed 25 passengers. Investigations revealed that the engineer of that train had sent 45 text messages while operating.

On July 27, 2009, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute released preliminary findings of their study of driver distraction in commercial vehicles. Two studies, comprising about 200 long-haul truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

s driving 3 million combined miles, used video cameras to observe the drivers and road; researchers observed "4,452 safety-critical events, which includes crashes, near crashes, crash-relevant conflicts, and unintended lane deviations." 81% of the safety critical events had some type of driver distraction. Text messaging had the greatest relative risk

Relative risk

In statistics and mathematical epidemiology, relative risk is the risk of an event relative to exposure. Relative risk is a ratio of the probability of the event occurring in the exposed group versus a non-exposed group....

, with drivers being 23 times more likely to experience a safety-critical event when texting. The study also found that drivers typically take their eyes off the forward roadway for an average of four out of six seconds when texting, and an average of 4.6 out of the six seconds surrounding safety-critical events.

Legislation

Accidents involving a driver being distracted by talking on a mobile phone have begun to be prosecuted as negligence similar to speeding. In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, from 27 February 2007, motorists who are caught using a hand-held mobile phone while driving will have three penalty points added to their license in addition to the fine of £60. This increase was introduced to try to stem the increase in drivers ignoring the law. Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 prohibits all mobile phone use while driving, including use of hands-free devices. New Zealand bans hand held cellphone use from 1 November 2009. Many states in the United States have banned texting on cell phones while driving. Illinois became the 17th American state to enforce this law. As of July 2010, 30 states had banned texting while driving, with Kentucky becoming the most recent addition on July 15.

Public Health Law Research maintains a list of distracted driving laws in the United States. This database of laws provides a comprehensive view of the provisions of laws that restrict the use of mobile communication devices while driving for all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 1992, when first law was passed, through December 1, 2010. The dataset contains information on 22 dichotomous, continuous or categorical variables including, for example, activities regulated (e.g., texting versus talking, hands-free versus handheld), targeted populations, and exemptions.

Hand-held and hands-free

Countries where using either a hand-held or hands-free phone while driving is illegal:
— No ban for adult drivers of non-commercial vehicles, but about 30 states have bans that apply to some or all young drivers, usually those under 18. Some of the states that have such bans are:
} — only youth under 18
}

• • • All drivers under 18 are covered by the ban, even if they have unrestricted licenses.
    • In addition to the emergency exception, use of GPS features is allowed, although data entry by a driver under 18 is illegal if the vehicle is in motion.

} — only for drivers under 21 with permits or probationary licenses, except in emergencies (see Kyleigh's Law

Kyleigh's Law

Kyleigh's Law is a motor vehicle law in New Jersey. It requires any driver under age 18, who holds a permit or probationary driver license, buy a $4.00 pair of decals and display them on the top left corner of the front and rear license plates of their vehicles...

)
} — only for the following:

• • • School bus drivers while children are being transported and the bus is in motion; no exception for emergencies
    • Drivers under age 18 with restricted licenses, except in emergencies

Hand-held only

Countries where using a hand-held phone while driving is illegal:

—Only in:
}
} as of 1 January 2010
} as of June 6,2011
} as of April 1,2008
} as of 1 October 2009
} as of April 1, 2008
} as of Jan. 1, 2010 (plus hands-free for 'new' drivers)
} as of April 1, 2011—Only in:

• • Andhra Pradesh
    Andhra Pradesh
    Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
    
    
  • Chennai
    Chennai
    Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
    
    
  • New Delhi
    New Delhi
    New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
    
    
  • Kerala
    Kerala
    or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
    
    
  • Mumbai
    Mumbai
    Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
    
    

—Only in:

• • Tehran
    Tehran
    Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
    
     as of May 1, 2008—Only in:
  • Mexico City
    Mexico City
    Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
    
    —Only in:
  • Islamabad
    Islamabad
    Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
    
     (Hands-free allowed provided that hands are not used to answer the call, i.e. voice control/auto-pickup)

(Taiwan)—Only in:

• • The city of Montgomery
    Montgomery, Alabama
    Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
    
    , Alabama
    Alabama
    Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
    
    
  • The city of Fort Smith
    Fort Smith, Arkansas
    Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...
    
    , Arkansas
    Arkansas
    Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
    
    

}
}
}
}
}
} (the city of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 had a preexisting ban)
}

• • The city of Detroit, Michigan

}

• • The cities of Las Cruces
    Las Cruces, New Mexico
    Las Cruces, also known as "The City of the Crosses", is the county seat of Doña Ana County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 97,618 in 2010 according to the 2010 Census, making it the second largest city in the state....
    
    , Santa Fe
    Santa Fe, New Mexico
    Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
    
    , and Albuquerque
    Albuquerque, New Mexico
    Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
    
    , New Mexico
    New Mexico
    New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
    
    

}
} (for drivers under 18)

• • The city of Brooklyn
    Brooklyn, Ohio
    Brooklyn is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 11,169 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Brooklyn is located at ....
    
    , Ohio
    Ohio
    Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
    
    

} (As of January 1, 2010 - exception for use "in the scope of the person's employment if operation of the motor vehicle is necessary for the person's job.")

• • The cities of Philadelphia, Allentown
    Allentown, Pennsylvania
    Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...
    
    , Bethlehem
    Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
    Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
    
    , Erie
    Erie, Pennsylvania
    Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...
    
    , and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
    Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
    Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...
    
    

}—In all school zones at times when children are normally present. Note that this ban applies even on days that school is not in session, unless explicitly posted on the required signs.
}

• • All United States Department of Defense
    United States Department of Defense
    The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
    
     Installations

External links

• Bad Bill to Ban Cell Phone Use While Driving Passes Senate
• At this time, AAA believes it is premature to ban the use of cell phones while driving.
• Cell-Phone Ban Not a Good Call
• Cellular Phone Use While Driving: Risks and Benefits, a study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
• Accident Research Unit, University of Nottingham, UK
• 6.5% of drivers are on the phone
• California passes cell phone law
• Hands-Free Cellular Phones; Greatest Hidden Public Hazard on the Roadway
• Cell Phones and Driving - Insurance Information Institute
• SafeTexting Campaign - How to change the behavior
• A wiki devoted to driving research
• Driven to Distraction. Articles in this series from The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (July 2009 to January 2010) examine the dangers of drivers using cellphones and other electronic devices.
• Facebook page built to bring more awareness to the dangers of driving and cellphone use.
• Drivers make more errors when talking on cell phone than to a passenger