Knowing that California will apply the hands-free driving law when using cellphone while driving is definitely improve safety measures necessary to prevent possible driving accidents due to unattentive and distracted drivers. Drivers who talk on the phone while driving can be extremely distracting and dangerous because you could loose focus on the road because part of your mind is actually in the conversation that progresses over the phone! Having steering one hand and the other hand on the phone, like dialing or texting, will keep drivers eyes off the road and into the phone and the drivers focus will never be 100 percent on the road and the cars around him/her.
While on the road, there are definitely times I noticed some drivers adbrutly and unsafely slowing down, or swirving a little bit, and when I take a glance, such drivers were busy talking on the phone with one hand off the steering wheel. I saw these quite often in the road, and sometimes talking over the phone while driving definitely affects someones focus and performance.
Instead of talking over the phone while driving, it would be best to tell your caller that you are on the road, and tell your caller that you will call him/her back as soon as you arrive and off the road, and Im sure your caller will understand if he/she is concern about your safetly on the road. It is also much safer to pull over in a safe area when you hear your phone ringing before you take the call specially when you are on a busy road. Or why not allow miss calls? Besides, most cellphone nowadays will register the caller id of the caller, so as soon as you are off the road, you can call back the missed calls. You also have the option to avail the voice mail additional feature/service for your cellphone and allow your phone to take a message of your caller while you are driving, and then review your voice messages as soon as you are off the road and safely in your destination. Althought, I personally think that this is not the safest nor the best solution to the growing problem of lossing focus while driving, but it is probably better to use speaker phone or one-ear headset instead of having one hand on the phone while driving, this way both hands are actually on the steering wheel like they should be.
Written by ©JazeVox