NTSB calls for nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving

GlobalPost

The National Transportation Safety Board in the US is calling for a nationwide ban on driver use of cell phones, CNN reported.

Deborah A.P. Hersman, NTSB chairman, will hold a press conference Tuesday at 2 pm discussing the board’s recommendations to ban cell phone use except in emergency situations. Even though the board investigates transportation and pipeline accidents, it can only make recommendations, it cannot implement them, the Washington Post reported.

Read more at GlobalPost: NTSB: Ban truckers' cell phones

The recommendation was unanimously agreed upon by its five-member board, and it applies to both hands-free and hand-held phones. While many states have existing laws against texting and hand-held cell phone use while driving, this is the most extreme, the Associated Press reported.

NTSB’s latest recommendation comes in connection with a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year, which the board said the initial collision in the accident was caused by the 19-year-old pick up driver who sent or received 11 texts in 11 minutes immediately before the crash, the AP reported. The pickup truck was traveling 55 mph and collided into the back of a tractor truck which slowed for high construction. The pickup was then rear-ended by a school bus that overrode a smaller vehicle, followed by a second school bus that rammed into the back of the first bus, the AP reported. The accident left two people dead and 38 injured.

Read more at GlobalPost: Will this graphic video stop you from texting while driving?

“We will never know whether the driver was typing, reaching for the phone, or reading a text when his pickup ran into the truck in front of him without warning,” Hersman said, the Washington Post reported. The board will meet at its Washington headquarters to discuss the accident.

In 2009 nearly 5,500 fatalities and 500,000 injuries resulted from crashes involving a distracted driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Washington Post reported. About two out of 10 American drivers overall say they’ve texted or emailed while driving, according to a survey of more than 6,000 drivers by the NHTSA, the AP reported.

Read more at GlobalPost: Health: "No SMS is worth an SOS"

Sign up for our daily newsletter

Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.