Bill comes betwixt teen drivers, their phones

Donte Haynes admits he might not have rammed a Mercedes last year if he hadn't been talking to his buddy on a cell phone while driving home from soccer practice.

But still, Haynes said, keep his hands off his phone entirely? Every time he's behind the wheel? That's rather extreme, the Cary High School senior and his buddies agreed.

"That's the time most of us talk. And text message. How else do we keep up?" said Zack Cockerham, also a Cary High senior, trailing off to take a call on his cell phone.

If child advocates and some state legislators get their way, teenagers will have to keep their eyes on the road and their hands off the cell phone keypad. Otherwise, a legislative proposal would force offenders to pay a $25 fine and spend an extra six months at the current level of his or her restricted license.

The ban got a thumbs-up from a Senate judiciary committee Thursday. It's unclear whether the bill has enough support to become law, but its next stop will be a full debate in the Senate.

At teen hangouts across the Triangle -- and also the back row of the Senate hearing room, where a cluster of legislative pages whispered their disapproval of the ban -- the bill had few fans.

"I mean, my mom would freak out if I didn't answer the phone while I was driving," said Abigail Brach, a 14-year-old from Gastonia who will soon get a provisional license that allows her to drive with an experienced driver.

"What if I'm lost and need directions?" said Lindsay Gonyeau, a Cary High senior.

"What are they going to do? Take the radio out of my car? I mean, that's a distraction, too. I have to turn the knob," said Hannah Welch, a 15-year-old from Gastonia who has just learned to drive.

"It's kind of unfair; adults make mistakes, too," said Allison Cardella, a Cary High senior.

The ban's supporters admit it's not safe for adults to yap on the phone while driving, either. In general, drivers are four times as likely to be involved in a crash if they are talking on the phone, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

At least 11 other states restrict cell phone use for new drivers, and nearly every other state is debating restrictions like this, according to Tom Vitaglione, co-chairman of the N.C. Child Fatality Task Force.

Leading cause of death

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for North Carolina teens ages 15 through 17, Vitaglione said.

Cell phones were partly to blame for at least two crashes killing teens in the past two years, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill. It's difficult to know just how many fatal crashes involved cell phones, said Krista Ragan, researcher for the Child Fatality Review Team at the medical examiner's office.

But teens can be particularly prone to careless driving errors while on the phone, advocates say. Though no studies have been done to assess the level of impairment cell phones create in teen drivers, a study by the National Institute of Mental Health found that teens can't multitask as well as adults.

Matilda Bailey, who has two teenage children driving, agrees. Her daughter Beth Bailey, a senior at Green Hope High School, tenses up if her cell phone rings while she is driving. Matilda Bailey is relieved to see an effort that would outlaw cell phone use among young drivers, particularly now that her 15-year-old son is driving.

No worse than elderly

Some legislators don't think teens are any worse drivers than the elderly.

"I'm 62 years old, and I was a much better driver when I was 16," said Sen. Hugh Webster of Alamance County. Webster, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, withheld his support of the bill when members struck an amendment that would have allowed hands-free devices to be used.

"To cut off this form of communication with our kids is a mistake," Webster said, adding that he often chats with his sister on his hands-free device to stay awake while driving at night.

Most members of the legislative committee stood firm against all mobile phone technology.

"It's not the act of holding the phone to the ear that's dangerous," Arthur Goodwin, senior research associate with the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, told the committee. "Speaking on the phone takes your mind away from the task of driving."

If the bill passes, most teens figure they'll find a way to not get caught.

"At the age we're at," said Cockerham, the Cary senior, "we find ways around most everything."