The article reports that millions of Americans use their cars as a mobile offices, rely on phones almost every hour of every workday to stay productive and earn a living. So would drivers ever abide by a proposed ban on almost all cell phone use behind the wheel, even if it is hands-free? Could they afford to? Those are just a few of the questions looming over a federal recommendation that seeks to rein in what has become an essential tool of American business.

The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. It urged all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. The NTSB, an independent agency that investigates accidents and makes safety recommendations, doesn’t have the power to impose regulations or make grants, but its suggestions carry significant weight with lawmakers and regulators.

Still, a decision rests with the states, meaning that 50 separate legislatures would have to act.

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The article goes on to report that about half of American drivers between 21 and 24 say they’ve thumbed messages or emailed from the driver’s seat. And what’s more, many drivers don’t think it’s dangerous when they do it – only when others do.

A national survey, the first government study of its kind on distracted driving, and other data released Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration underscore the difficulty authorities face in discouraging texting and cell phone talking while driving.

The article further states that at any given moment last year on America’s streets and highways, nearly one in every 100 car drivers was texting, emailing, surfing the Web or otherwise using a hand-held electronic device, the safety administration said. And those activities spiked 50 percent over the previous year, even as states rush to ban the practices.

Last month, Pennsylvania became the 35th state to forbid texting while driving.

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says distracted driving is still under-reported, and he is urging Congress to enact a national law against texting while driving. “We have to be able to get people to understand that this is very, very dangerous behavior,” he says. Distracted driving has been LaHood’s signature issue. Thirty five states and the District of Columbia now have bans on texting while driving. “When we started three years ago with distracted driving, it was not on anybody’s radar,” he says. “Only eight states had (texting bans).”

The article goes on to state that two separate studies by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that bans on handheld cell phones and on texting had not reduced crashes. “While there’s no question that cell phone use and especially texting by drivers is distracting, there’s no evidence that laws enacted so far have cut crashes,” IIHS spokesman Russ Rader says. But LaHood says that when such laws are diligently enforced — as they were during National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) studies in Syracuse, N. Y., and Hartford, Conn. — crashes do go down.

Meanwhile, NHTSA is changing the way it measures fatalities related to distracted driving, using a narrower, more focused definition that will enable local police officers to more accurately pinpoint distraction as a factor in crashes. Previously, among distracted driving fatalities, NHTSA listed deaths caused by careless driving or those in which a cell phone was merely present in the vehicle; those categories have been removed from its new category, “distraction affected crashes.”

LaHood compares the new approach to the way NHTSA changed its methodology in 2006 on drunken driving crashes. Prior to 2006, any crash in which a driver, pedestrian or bicyclist had a blood alcohol level of .-01 or higher was an “alcohol-related crash.” In 2006, the agency began using the measure “alcohol-impaired driving crashes,” to include only those in which a driver or motorcyclist had a blood alcohol level of .-08 or higher.

Using the new methodology, NHTSA reports 3,092 distraction-affected crash deaths in 2010, which LaHood says cannot be compared with the 5,474 “distraction-related” fatalities in 2009. However, he says other indicators, such as the National Occupant Protection Use Survey, in which trained data collectors at random intersections actually observe drivers in their vehicles, indicate that distracted driving is still “a significant problem.” That survey found that the percentage of drivers texting or visibly manipulating handheld devices

in-creased from 0.6 percent in 2009 to 0.9 percent in 2010; handheld cell phone use remained steady at 5 percent.

“Distracted driving, we believe, is still under-reported,” LaHood says. LaHood also will announce that updated data shows there were 3-2,885 traffic fatalities in 2-010, the lowest level since 1-949. Early projections from NHTSA in March had found 3-2,788 road deaths. There were 1-0,228 drunken-driving deaths in 2-010, down 4.9 percent from 2-009.

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“We knew that when states pass good laws, lives are saved and a lot of money is saved. We’d just never done the analysis,” says John Ulczycki of the National Safety Council, which researched the issue for the Allstate Foundation.

This report came in as Congress prepares to consider a multi-year highway and transit spending bill. Advocates of graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws are pushing to include funding for about $25 million a year in incentives for states to strengthen GDL programs.

Motor-vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teens in the USA, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Per mile driven, teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are four times more likely than older drivers to crash, the CDC says.

Every state has some form of GDL, which rewards novice drivers with additional privileges as they gain experience and maturity. Ulczycki and other experts say the most effective programs contain seven key components; two states, New York and Delaware, have programs with all seven.

The seven components: a minimum age 16 for a learner’s permit; six months’ supervised driving before unsupervised driving; minimum 30 hours’ supervised driving during learning stage; intermediate licensing at a minimum age of 16½; intermediate nighttime restriction beginning at 10 p.m.; no more than one non-family passenger for intermediate license holders; and a minimum age of 17 for a full license.

One component that could draw opposition from lawmakers concerned about states’ rights: raising the minimum age for getting a learner’s permit.

Also, the 10,000-member National Youth Rights Association opposes a national GDL law. “It’s discriminatory on its face,” Vice President Jeffrey Nadel says.

If you or someone that you care about has been hurt in an auto accident, you need a legal team that will fight for you and your rights every step of the way. To speak with members of the Charpentier Law Firm about your case and to find out how we can help, 

contact our Central Florida personal injury attorneys today.

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Honda has also determined that approximately 640 affected driver’s airbag service parts were sold for installation in vehicles for collision repair or other vehicle service.

Because Honda is unable to determine the specific vehicles that may have received the affected service parts through existing information, Honda will inspect an additional approximately 603,000 vehicles and replace those parts as necessary.

This recall now includes certain 2001 and 2002 Accord, 2001 to 2003 Civic, 2001 to 2003 Odyssey, 2002 and 2003 CR-V, 2003 Pilot, 2002 and 2003 Acura 3.2 TL and 2003 Acura 3.2 CL vehicles.

Notification to the expanded group of customers will begin in late December 2011.

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