New Cell Phone Laws
In California the governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has already signed legislations that ban the use of handheld devices while operating a vehicle in the state of California.
As stated effective July 1, 2008 the new law bans the use of using handheld cell phones while driving unless the driver is using a hands free device or that the call is an emergency. There are fines set in place if you break this new law, but aside from being pulled over and fined, people that use cell phones while driving cause a great deal of car accidents by not paying attention to their surroundings.
Your car accident lawyer should know what is going on in legislation with the new cell phone laws and should be able to help you with your case accordingly if a person talking on their cell phone was the cause of your car accident. A car accident lawyer is able to strongly represent your claim if a cell phone was the cause of the accident due to laws and statistics that have been passed and proven. A car accident lawyer knows that cell phones are the new “drunk driver”.
People who talk on cell phones while driving have a slower reaction time, they are paying less attention to their surroundings, and they are distracted by what the person on the other end is talking about. These are many reasons why drunk drivers get into car accidents. An experienced car accident lawyer will be able to prove in your case that a drunk driver is really no more dangerous then the person that was talking on the cell phone that caused your accident.
Statistics state that over 236 million people have a cell phone subscription to some company as of May 2007, this compares to the amount of about 4.6 million that had cell phones in the year 1990, which was about 17 years ago.
The biggest reason a person talking on a cell phone and driving causes an accident is because they have to look away when dialing on the phone and most importantly people get so distracted while having a conversation it puts a severe amount of impairment on the driver that is talking on the cell phone.
Many of these cell phone users are young drivers who are just learning to experience the road let alone trying to multitask while driving. A car accident lawyer understands and knows what seriousness cell phones bring into an accident and therefore the car accident lawyer is right there to help you with any issues that might come along with a cell phone being involved.
Car accidents have a reported 98% of accidents being a result of a distracted driver. Cell phone use was about 5% of that 98%, but 62% involved some sort of distraction that was coming from inside the car. According to one study it found that a person talking on a cell phone while driving is four times more likely to cause an accident, this study also shows that a hands free device did not change the risk. Cell phones cause about 2,600 deaths and around 330,000 injuries in the U.S. every year.