Hands-free phones are lifesavers, study says

A skeptical reaction
Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which believes hands-free phone use while driving is just as dangerous as using a hand-held phone, had not seen the study, but was skeptical. “I’m not quite sure how researchers would have been able to extrapolate a lives-saved number in that study,” he said.

“All we can talk about is the research we have done and what the federal government has done that shows that the conversation itself is distracting and the risk is the same whether it’s a hand-held or hands-free  phone.” Bottom line, Rader said: “We know that talking on a cell phone increases a driver’s risk of a serious crash fourfold.”

But California State Sen. Joe Simitian, author of the hands-free law that goes into effect in six weeks, was delighted to hear Kolko’s results. “It took me six years to get this bill passed” over heavy lobbying against it by the cell phone industry, he told msnbc.com. Only Verizon did not initially oppose the bill.

Simitian said he was able to keep pushing his bill through the statehouse and adding support from colleagues by pointing out hypocrisy on the issue from cell service providers. “It was a very ‘Alice in Wonderland’ conversation because all of them published brochures for their customers that said don’t talk on your cell phones while driving.”

By the time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill into law in 2006, only Sprint was opposed, Simitian said.

Today Sprint has backed off and would not fight similar efforts in other states, said the company’s public affairs manager, John Taylor. “While we’re not opposed to them, we’re not sure it’s the best way to change driver behavior,” he said. The company believes phones are just one of many distractions faced by drivers and offers a “turn-key” program on driver awareness to educators and others.

The Wireless Association, the cellular phone industry's trade group, is “neutral on hands-free laws," said John Walls, vice president of public affairs. "We think it’s really up to an individual state. Whether they’re necessary or not, people can argue all day."

Since there are so many potential distractions to drivers, “to isolate one and think you’ve licked the problem is really doing everyone an injustice,” he said.

Nevertheless, Kolko expects more states to follow California, whose 23 million licensed drivers far outnumber those  in any other state, “just as we’ve looked at what happened in New York.”

Bet on that, agreed Simitian, who said he was contacted recently on the topic by a legislator from Louisiana.

Simitian, a Democrat from Palo Alto, said Kolko’s estimate of 300 fatalities a year being prevented by the law gives him “a very satisfying feeling … knowing that every day that passes in California, there’s at least one life saved.”

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