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No Handphone While Driving,please!   Message List  
Reply | Forward Message #11 of 1520 |
Excerpts from the Study published in the recent edition of British Medical Journal
 
Role of mobile phones in motor vehicle crashes resulting in hospital attendance
Participants 456 drivers aged  17 years who owned or used mobile phones and had been involved in road crashes necessitating hospital attendance between April 2002 and July 2004
 
Results
 
A person using a mobile phone when driving is four times more likely to have a crash that will result in hospital attendance. Sex, age group, or availability of a hands-free device do not influence the increased likelihood of a crash. In this study, we measured the seriousness of crashes by participants' injuries; almost all had at least one injury and almost half had two or more.
 
Mobile phone use while driving may result in physical or cognitive distraction. In an effort to minimise the effects of handling phones, many jurisdictions, including Western Australia, have laws prohibiting the use of hand held phones while driving. Although not based on rigorous sampling methods, periodic roadside observations conducted in Perth before, during, and after our study indicated that about 2% of drivers were illegally using hand held phones.
 
Furthermore, 37% (n = 122) of participants who reported using phones while driving, at least on occasion, reported not having a hands-free device in their vehicle.

Studies of laws prohibiting use of hand held phones in the US found that such use declined significantly in the first few months after the laws took effect.In New York, use of hand held phones subsequently returned to levels seen before the law. Publicised enforcement campaigns may be needed to achieve long term compliance. Even full compliance, however, will not eliminate the risk of crashes. According to our study, there is no safety advantage associated with switching to the types of hands-free devices that are commonly in use.

Laws limiting all phone use while driving would be difficult to enforce. While a possible solution in the future is to change mobile phones so they cannot be used when vehicles are in motion, the likelihood the industry would embrace such a change seems remote. More and more new vehicles are being equipped with Bluetooth technology, facilitating voice activation and therefore totally hands-free phone use. Though this may lead to fewer hand held phones used while driving in the future, our research indicates that this may not remove the risk. Importantly, if this new technology actually increases mobile phone use in cars, it could contribute to even more crashes. At least in the short term, it seems likely that mobile phone use in cars will continue to grow, despite the growing evidence of the risk it creates.



Dr. Abd Hamid Mat Sain
AM(MAL), MBBS(Adelaide, Aust.), MS(UKM)
FRCS(Edinburgh,UK), FICS (USA)
Consultant Surgeon
ColumbiaAsia Medical Centre
292 Jalan Haruan 2,Oakland Commercial Centre
70300 Seremban,Negeri Sembilan
Malaysia
Ph :+606-6011988
Fax:+606-6011848
Mobile:+6012-2071913
Email :abdhamidmatsain@...
 
 
       


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Thu Sep 1, 2005 1:50 pm

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Excerpts from the Study published in the recent edition of British Medical Journal Role of mobile phones in motor vehicle crashes resulting in hospital...
Dr Abd Hamid Mat Sain
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Sep 1, 2005
2:07 pm
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