if hands-free cell = distracted driving, why isn't talking to passengers?

[Croesus]

Whether enforcible or not, I'm all for a ban on cell phone usage (hands on or not) while driving any vehicle. Of course, I don't have a cell phone, nor want one, so that probably colors my perspective quite a bit. I hate cell phones, don't want one and would prefer that nobody else had one while driving a vehicle. I see accidents all the time caused by non-attentive drivers on the phone...

This is how I feel. In fact, I go so far as to tell friends not to call me while they are driving, unless it's literally an emergency. As great an experience it must be to talk to me it's not worth the increased risk of an accident.

 

[Dire Bare]

In DB's story, I wonder if there might be a legal case to sue the passenger for distracting the driver. If you are driving down the road with me in the passenger's seat and I yank the wheel and run a grandma off the road and she dies, who is at fault? I should think you telling the officer what happened and him dusting for prints would show evidence that I committed some kind of crime, and that you are not at fault.

Ah, no. My passenger was simply conversing with me, and I was distracted. My passenger wasn't attacking me, or even trying to distract me.

In response to much of the thread in general, cell phone usage is merely one distracting behavior that can cause folks to become negligent and dangerous. It's just one that is easily banned, as opposed to conversation. We'd still have plenty of accidents with an effective ban, but hopefully less so.

It's the fools who are jabbering on their handsets while aggressively speeding and weaving that truly make me want to reach out of my car and throttle someone . . . but they'd be idiots even without their cell phones.