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aCTIvITy 2.16
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conducted in Toronto, concluded that drivers talking on their phones were about four times more likely to be involved in an accident than those who were not on the phone.
10 Another highly publicized 2006 study from the University of Utah concluded that drivers who talked on cellphones were as impaired as drivers who were intoxicated at the legal blood-alcohol limit of 0.08. The study, however, found that using hands-free devices did little to improve drivers’ performances.
11 There is some evidence suggesting state and local bans have caused some drivers to talk less while on the road.
12 This month, California’s Office of Traffic Safety released the results of a study showing a sharp decrease in the number of accidents caused by cellphone use that resulted in death or injury.
13 Researchers tracked the number of accident reports that listed cellphone use as a factor during the two-year periods before and after the 2008 passage of a statewide ban on handheld devices. The study concluded that while overall traffic fatalities of all kinds dropped by 22 percent, fatalities caused by drivers who were talking on a handheld phone at the time of the crash dropped nearly 50 percent. Similar declines were found for drivers using hands-free devices.
14 The study followed the agency’s 2011 survey of more than 1,800 drivers that found that only about 10 percent of drivers reported that they regularly talked on the phone while driving—down from 14 percent from the previous year’s survey. In addition, the survey saw increases in the number of people who said they rarely or never use their cellphone behind the wheel.
15 Those surveyed, however, overwhelmingly believed that hands-free devices made cellphone use safer, a perception that runs counter to research showing such tools do little to reduce the distraction.
16 “If there is an advantage, it’s only because a person may have two hands on the wheel, but most people drive with one hand all the time anyway,” said Chris Cochran, spokesman for the Office of Traffic Safety. “In reality, it’s the conversation, not the phone itself.”
Second Read
• Reread the passage to answer these text-dependent comprehension questions.
• Write any additional questions you have about the text in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
2. Craft and Structure: What clues in the text tell you the meaning of the word intoxicated?
3. Knowledge and Ideas: What is the writer’s purpose for citing studies? How do you know?
my Notes
Unit 2 • The Challenge of Utopia 161
fatalities: deaths
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