Depending on the study of the week it’s either safer to be hands-free and talking on your cell phone while driving, or it doesn’t make a difference. Personally, other than being annoyed because one hand is tied up from doing something like turning on a turn signal or changing the radio station, I don’t think it makes a huge difference as your head is still in the conversation instead of on the road, and while others will say something like “What’s the difference between having an in-depth conversation with someone on the phone instead of with your passenger in the car?”, I will retort that at least with a passenger you have someone else watching the road who can yell at you to stop.
The other day as I’m driving I see a woman doing her part of complying with the law of technically being hands-free while driving as she was obviously on her speakerphone. I say “obviously” because she was also a hand-talker and in my rear-view mirror I couldn’t help but see both hands off of the wheel as she was in heated conversation, phone in one hand while her other hand was anywhere but attached to the wheel, hands waving around like a bee was buzzing her head, and I was probably more mesmerized and distracted watching her than she was talking on her phone.
Over the course of the stretch of road I can bet with nearly 100% certainty that if you pulled her over and asked her to say any detail about the travel she had just undertaken should couldn’t tell you if traffic was bumper to bumper or wide open, she wouldn’t know if it was raining or sunny, but she sure had one entertaining conversation, at least from my perspective, one that would have only been topped had she had her window open and the phone slipped out of her hand on onto the road in one of her “hand-waving conversation” goodness moments.
As many states are enacting hands-free legislation that doesn’t really seemed to be enforced, and seeing my share of people who still have their phone glued to their ear while driving, whether you believe the studies or not I do wonder: Are you hands-free while talking on the phone while driving?
That’s it for this one! L8R!!