From: calvin@remove.daxack.ca   
      
   Stephen Sprunk (stephen@sprunk.org) said...   
   >   
   >Actually, studies show that the accident rate is just as high when the   
   >driver is having a conversation with someone in the car as with someone   
   >on the other end of a phone call.   
      
   Please cite the studies if you are making a point with them.   
      
   My point was that it has become a natural reaction in most people to   
   continue to focus on a telephone conversation at a level which draws   
   mental resources away from an issue that requires the most of those   
   resources. The same does not occur when in a conversation with someone   
   present.   
      
   I was following up to a post that commented on how the expectations of   
   people making a call to someone expect an immediate interruption of   
   what they are currently doing in a way that someone present would not.   
   I commented that I believe that this expectation tends to affect the   
   way people react when on the receiving end of a telephone call, and then   
   opined that this extends to the issue of using a phone while driving.   
      
   All sorts of distractions cause accidents, and I am not saying that   
   conversations with people in the car do not cause accidents. Passengers   
   have been present in vehicles since their inception, but there has been   
   a substantial growth in accidents since the ubiquitous presence of   
   mobile telephones.   
      
   --   
   Calvin Henry-Cotnam   
   "Unusual or extreme reactions to events caused by negligence   
    are imaginable, but not reasonably foreseeable"   
     - Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, May 2008   
      
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