Hilbert: Distracted driving even hands-free

Andrea Hilbert is a writer and banker living in Westhampton Beach. 

New York State Police conducted a campaign called Operation Hang Up over Thanksgiving weekend, targeting motorists who use cellphones and other handheld devices while driving.

The enforcement effort is backed by a new state law that gives police power to pull over motorists solely for using a handheld device while driving. The law was behind a crackdown by Suffolk County police in August that resulted in 1,109 summonses for cellphone-related traffic violations in a single week.

These admirable efforts are supported by private entities with a stake in the game. One haunting national ad campaign by AT&T features true stories of text messages that were sent or received before someone's life was adversely affected, or even ended, by texting and driving. In one TV ad, the text "Where u at?" appears as a mother says, "This is the text my daughter was reading when she drove into oncoming traffic."

The spots are powerful and raise public awareness of the dangers of distraction by texting or holding a phone while driving. But there's a deafening silence when it comes to the hazards of operating a vehicle while engaged in a telephone conversation via a hands-free device.

Those dangers are well documented. As early as 2003, psychology professor David Strayer of the University of Utah presented preliminary results of a study that suggested hands-free cellphones are just as distracting as handheld ones. The conversation itself -- not just the manipulation of a device -- distracts drivers. Final results of the study were published three years later, and showed that motorists who talk on hands-free phones are as impaired as drunken drivers.

A 2008 study from the University of South Carolina shed more light on why speaking on a cellphone is more dangerous than, say, tuning into the radio or the chatter of passengers. Psychology researcher Amit Almor found that planning to speak and speaking with a person who is elsewhere exerted much greater demands on the brain than listening. The study suggested that when people talk to someone who isn't present, some of their spatial-attention resources may create a mental representation of the person on the other end of the conversation.

It's an inconvenient reality that we seem to be ignoring. Cellphone accessory manufacturers continue to tout the safety attributes of wired and wireless headsets. Automotive manufacturers install Bluetooth functionality in new cars as a selling point. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents offices that develop and implement state-level programs, while 35 states ban text messaging for all drivers, and nine states prohibit drivers from using handheld phones, no state bans hands-free cellphone use for all drivers.

I have been guilty of "selective hearing." Each Sunday evening, I set out on a 90-minute drive from my Long Island home to start my workweek in Manhattan. The journey is monotonous, a straight shot on the Long Island Expressway. It coincides with Monday morning and the opening of business in my home country of Australia. Both my personal and professional worlds "wake up" during the drive. Emails start filling the in-box, and the red light on my BlackBerry starts flashing.

I never check messages while driving, but it's harder when it comes to taking and making calls on my car's speakerphone. Too often, I'm unable to resist the efficiency of scheduling a conference call during the trip, or the opportunity to phone family back home for a chat.

I believe many New Yorkers do not know about the hazards of driving while speaking on a hands-free device. If even those who are aware, like me, cannot resist the temptation to talk and drive, it seems clear that we need a law banning the practice.

New York State and Suffolk County have been at the forefront of national efforts to create and enforce legislation targeting driver distraction resulting from handheld phone use. It's time to show the same leadership in prohibiting all phone conversations by drivers. Evidently, self-regulation isn't enough.