A study of Australian drivers found that “those using cellphones were four times as likely to be involved in a serious crash regardless of whether they used hands-free devices.”
“There just doesn’t seem to be any safety benefit by restricting drivers to hands-free phones,” said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “It’s the cognitive overload that sometimes occurs when you’re engaging in a conversation that is the source of the distraction more so than the manipulation of the device.”