Hands-Free: Not as safe as you think

Talking on a cell phone or texting while driving is against the law in many countries, given that this combination can result in plenty of accidents. Here in Ontario, a new law banning cell phone and hand held device use while driving was implemented last month. If you are caught, you can be fined up to $500. However, the law still allowed for the use of hands-free devices, and soon enough Bluetooth ear pieces of all kinds were flying off the shelves at cell phone stores.

A recent poll published in the Toronto Star shows Canadians are split 50/50 on whether or not using such devices is safe. After doing a news report on this issue, I found that even though they are legal, they aren’t much safer at all. This is because your mind is engaged in two different activities that require careful attention. Trying to keep up with a conversation while watching the road attentively is very difficult to do. Even though a hands-free device lets you hold the steering wheel with both hands, your mind is still split between these two cognitive tasks.

As a result, police say the best thing to do is to pull over to the side of the road and finish your conversation. But even this is hard for some to do, either because they are addicted to their phones, or they have a profession where they need to be on the phone and on the move. My friend who I interviewed in the news report is a pilot for Air Canada, and he says if he misses a call from work he can get in a lot of trouble. I’ve also heard of tow-truck drivers and other service professionals who say it is simply impractical for them to pull over each time their phone rings.

In the video above, I show the news report I did on this from a while back when the cell phone ban was just being proposed in government but was not yet implemented. On a personal note, as someone who used to talk on a cell phone while driving (and driving manual!) reporting this story made me think twice about what I was doing. Seeing the graphic British PSA on texting while driving pretty much sealed the deal.