How many times have you been driving when a phone call came in, then you noticed after the call that you were down the road and didn't quite recall exactly how you arrived there because the bulk of your conscious attention was on the call and not on your driving?
"A recent study (PDF) detailed in the Washington Post verifies that using hands-free or voice-activated texting is no safer than texting with your hands while you are driving a car.
Using a handheld device to tap out a text message while driving has
been banned in many states and provinces. From the article: '"One of the
common comments was that they felt an inclination to look down at the
screen to see if it heard them correctly, so that could be one possible
explanation of why they were not looking at the roadway more
frequently," Yager said. She said drivers said they felt safer when
using voice-activated texting than when entering messages on a keyboard.
"Perhaps it is because they view it as safer and therefore it must be,
but still they have this inclination to look down at the screen," she
said. "We found that their driving performance suffered equally with
both methods." As has been proven in studies of cellphone conversations,
Yager said drivers engaged in any form of texting were distracted by
the communication effort.'"
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