Slash Healthcare Costs, Tip #2: Ditch the Cell Phone (Before You Drive Into a Ditch)

The title says it all. Yes, researchers have studied the effects of cell phone use on your driving skills. They found that using a cell phone while driving is equivalent to having a blood alcohol level of 0.08%--the legal limit for driving under the influence of alcohol.

It’s also equivalent to having a couple of noisy kids in the backseat throwing their stuffed toys at you and screaming, “Mommy! Mommy! Bobby hit me!” It’s equivalent to eating a hamburger with one hand and sipping a soda with the other, or plucking your eyebrows, or checking your email on your crackberry, playing video games, listening to your IPod, or fiddling with your overpriced, underwhelming satellite navigation system—all things that people do every day while they’re behind the wheel: drive while distracted.

About 6,000 people die per year, every year from distracted driving—mostly because of cell phone use while driving. Tragically, it’s often not the cell phone user/driver who’s killed, but the pedestrian, bicyclist, passenger, or other driver who gets nailed by the thoughtless jerk who couldn’t wait to answer that text message or phone call.

Of course, most people involved in cell-phone-use-while-driving accidents aren’t killed outright. They’re injured and have to go to the hospital or see a doctor. They often end up needing a series of treatments for chronic pain, or neck or back injuries that can take years and endless physical therapy sessions and surgery to help them heal. If they fully heal, and many don’t.

Approximately 800,000 people every day drive with a cell phone in hand. The Insurance Institute says that it makes no difference whether you hold the cell phone in your hand or use a hands-free device; both are equally distracting. In fact, the hands-free device may be more dangerous, since it gives us a false sense of safety.

An easy way to save millions in healthcare costs each year would be for Congress to pass the bill introduced in the Senate by Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) that would force states to pass laws banning driving while text messaging or risk losing 25% of their federal highway funding. Currently only 18 states ban text messaging while driving.

Only 7 states ban cell phone use in the car. The US public could save a lot of money passing a federal law that bans cell phone use while driving, except to allow drivers to dial 9-1-1 in case of an emergency.

Simple, yes, but is anyone proposing a bill? Hello? Is anyone there?