LaHood not ready to outlaw hand-free phone use while driving

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will not push for a ban on hands-free cell phone devices being used in automobiles.

LaHood, a major advocate of banning texting while driving, said that while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is researching whether any cell phone use causes "cognitive distractions" for drivers, he was not ready to say for sure that they did, according to news reports.

"We're going to work on the cognitive part of this problem. We're doing a study," LaHood told reporters at an event in Yonkers, N.Y., according to The Detroit News. "We base our solutions on data and before I or anyone else gets up and starts talking about 'hands-free this' or 'hands-free that,' or Sync or whatever, we want to have good data to back it up."

Carmakers in Detroit are particularly interested in that data because several states have enacted some form of ban on cell phone use in cars, leading to new car models being developed with hands-free technology built into the vehicles' entertainment system. About thirty states have bans on either texting or talking while driving. 

The Department of Transportation released a poll this month, in conjunction with Consumer Reports magazine, that 63 percent of drivers under 30 years of age had used their phones while driving within the past month, and 30 percent had sent text messages behind the wheel in the same period. For drivers over 40 years old, it was 41 percent and 9 percent, respectively. 

DoT and Consumer Reports have planned an April campaign that will feature a public service ad on the dangers of distracted driving. They say it will reach up to 100 million people.