Should Using a Cell Phone be Illegal While Driving?
             Cellular phones are one of the most widely and most popular forms of communication today. Though once considered rare luxuries, cellular telephones have become a commonplace possession over the last decade. Thanks in part to advances in wireless technology and immense public demand, cell phones have been made affordable to almost anyone wishing to pay for the phone and cellular service plans. Cell phones are so easily portable that it only makes sense that cell phones and automobiles will sometimes go together. With Americans using over 95 million cell phones, we notice the source of some of the accidents we see today. Does this mean we should ban the use of them all together or just change the way we go about using them?
             An article published in Mercury News in 2003, state officials reported that they were able to discover what distracted drivers in 9,000 crashes, almost 18 percent of the accidents that resulted from driver inattention in 2001. Cell phone use was cited in 891 crashes, or nearly one in 10 incidents (Richards & Corcoran). All were phone-using drivers who had been involved in a collision. The study concluded, "Collision risk is four times greater if you use a phone while driving" (Richards & Corcoran). In another study conducted by Accident Analysis and Prevention Journal in 1998, found that if a driver is in an accident while using a wireless phone, the chances are nine times greater that it will be a fatal accident. As the popularity of cell phones have increased in the last five years, so have the number of public safety advocates who link cell phone use by drivers
             to numerous fatal automobile accidents (White, Eiser, Harris 323). While the cell phone industry has lobbied against such actions, 22 states and hundreds of cities and towns across the nation have considered legislation limiting the use of cell phones by motorists.
             There is a lo...