I found this article about mobile device usage while driving both funny to read and informative at the same time. Before jumping to any preconceived conclusions here, you might want to read through the whole article first. Check it out.

Such are the sobering conclusions of University of Utah psychology researchers David L. Strayer, Frank A. Drews, Dennis J. Croach and William A. Johnston, whose recent study, “Why Do Cell Phones Conversations Interfere With Driving?” surveys the state of current research and reports on their own team’s research findings. Although fumbling with the handset is a hazard, the researchers present evidence that the problem does not seem to be solved by the use of hands-free devices.

While other studies have confirmed that groping for your phone, dialing and other physical manipulations do have a negative impact on driving, the Utah researchers focused on the effects of telephone conversations. Using driving simulators, undergraduate subjects pursued perceptual and cognitive tasks while using hands-free and handheld phones, book-on-tape controls and radio controls. Their data found “no reliable differences between hands-free and hand-held cell phone groups… These data demonstrate that the phone conversation itself resulted in significant slowing in the response to simulated traffic signals, as well as an increase in the likelihood of missing these signals. Moreover, the fact that handheld and hands-free cell phones resulted in equivalent dual-task deficits indicates that the interference was not due to peripheral factors such as holding the phone while conversing,” while “dual-task deficits were not observed in the book-on-tape and radio controls.”

People who mess with their sound systems are more likely to miss traffic signals, but nowhere near as likely as people actively engaged in a telephone conversation. And listening to a book or radio broadcast does not impair performance — but a telephone conversation seems to reduce the driver’s capacity to process information about the driving environment in real time.

If further research confirms the Utah psychologists’ finding that the use of hands-free devices is as distracting as handheld phones, then laws like the ones on the books in the UK, France, New York and New Jersey (and legislation pending in a dozen different US states) don’t make a lot of sense.