Posted On: June 7, 2006, 12:58 pm CDT

Posted By: .

This entire poll failed to ask one question: why? Why do people talk on cell phones when they know it is dangerous?

This poll is typical of similar ones that assess a situation based on a pre-conceived assumption. The assumption here is that it is horrible that anyone talks on a non-hands-free cell phone while driving. That is true. But instead of trying to shed light on what motivates this behavior, all this survey does is document the behavior.

I suppose it is much easier to obtain confirmation of one's views and provide additional fuel for further tounge-wagging ("oh, these people are awful, they're to BLAME")...but that merely adds heat to the debate, as opposed to shedding light that could be used to craft a solution.

For instance, maybe people fail to use hand-held devices because they are poorly designed, and need to be redesigned. But we will never know if that is the case from this survey.