Last week, CBC broke a story about a “recent” study out of Dal that purports to show that hands-free phone use while driving is just as dangerous as hand-held.
The study, which was a review of existing literature, was actually released more than 4 months ago at a conference in Whistler: the 18th Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference. Having looked at that paper and some of the underlying primary research, I began to wonder if the conclusion is a little bit misleading.
The body of literature really seems to be pointing to a broader problem: driving while distracted – distractions coming from many sources. Some papers (for example 
and this example) refer to distractions caused by being engaged in conversations – even those with someone else in the car.
No one is suggesting that we should ban travel with passengers in the car, although the research seems to be clear that drivers are going to be distracted by conversing with the people in the car. We have all experienced the distractions associated with crying kids in the backseat, over-exuberant and rambunctious sports teams in the carpool, shared map reading.
We don’t see legislation being proposed to mandate driving alone. We even have special car pool lanes, giving privileges to those drivers most likely to be distracted!
By demonstrating that there is no difference between hand-held and hands-free, is it possible that the Dalhousie study is actually showing that there is no difference between any kind of cell phone use and conversations with passengers in the car?
Does this raise questions about whether legislation that targets only mobile phone use is missing the mark?
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driving, mobile phones, hand-held, hands-free