Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for November 24, 2010

Phil’s a real cop, not a mall cop.

Young love…………

Pity Val’s using her mobile while driving - very dangerous and a bad example to Holly. Where’s the hands free????

yay!

Oh it’s OK Val, no school tomorrow with it being the Thanksgiving holiday.

I’m going to assume that Val had the good sense to pull over while talking on the cell phone.

As for hands-free, it’s not the hands that are the problem, it’s the mouth and brain. Accident statistics for hands-free and hand-held cellular phones are nearly identical (http://www.newsdial.com/technology/communication/cell-phone-statistics.html).

I’ve had one experience using a cell phone while driving; I could tell that I wasn’t in control of the vehicle, and it’ll have to be a real serious emergency to make me do it again. Plus, it’s illegal in my province to talk while using a hand-held phone.

I’ve used a hands-free once: while trying to adjust the mirror in a rental car, I accidentally called OnStar. I pulled over as the conversation started to avoid driving and talking, ‘cause I was so rattled when a telephone started ringing, and it appeared I’d done it.

It’s talking to your teen that’s the distraction – not the hands free v. holding the phone. Hopefully she’s not a texter too!

I use hands free some of the time, but I speak with many elderly people for my work & none of them can hear me when I use either my car’s hands free system or old school blue tooth on my phone.

Just obey your local traffic laws and drive safely! Distracted or impaired driving, regardless of cause, is illegal and can be deadly. Be safe out there!

She should have sent Phil - that would leave an impression

For me I guess I’m different. I have a celephone but limited on minutes so I use only if emergency’s. I find it difficult to talk while driving. I contentrate on driving more then phone. Now everyone knows what the young teen looks like.

Happy Thanksgiving all

As much as I hate cell phones and seeing drivers trying to drive while on the phone, I’d like to know what the difference is, safety-wise, between talking hands-free on the cell and talking to passengers in the car, especially if the driver compulsively looks at the passengers while driving?

Well, what do you know? Yesterday I wondered when we’d actually see the guy she likes, and one day later, here he is. Now if only we could see him say something …

On the phone-off the road. On the road-off the phone.