DeKalb: Confession from the parent of a teen driver

By Rick Diguette

If all goes well, by the time this column appears in the paper my 17-year-old daughter will be newly licensed to drive in Georgia.

Like many teens her age, she is eager to get behind the wheel of a car and enjoy some independence.

She is tired of having to rely on her mother and me for transportation to and from DeKalb School of the Arts, Decatur School of Ballet and her boyfriend’s house near Emory.

Plus, all her friends are already driving, and some of them are only 16.

I was happy to see that Gov. Sonny Perdue recently signed legislation that directly impacts my daughter’s safety on the road.

House Bill 23 makes it illegal for teens under the age of 18 to use a cell phone while driving a car unless they are reporting a crime, an accident, a medical emergency or a serious road hazard.

That makes Georgia the 28th state in the country to enact such a “no-brainer” law. What the other 22 states are waiting for is beyond me.

But too bad Georgia’s law doesn’t apply to motorists over 18 as well.

I am just as worried about adults being distracted by cell phones while driving, and this is why.

Even if you have never heard of inattention blindness, you know what it is if you drive while talking on the phone.

I became aware of this phenomenon about four years ago immediately after my first cell phone conversation while driving.

It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t be sure if the light at the last three intersections had been red or green.

In fact, I couldn’t even visualize having passed through those intersections. That’s more than a little scary.

This is a safety issue whether you are 18 or the proud parents of an 18-year-old.

Inattention blindness means that your brain is not effectively processing what is happening right in front of you because you are distracted by your cell phone conversation.

And this is just as true, by the way, even if you are using a hands-free headset.

In other words, driving while blind is not a good idea.

Just last month Gov. Perdue also signed into law the much more widely publicized Senate Bill 360 which makes texting while driving illegal, no matter how old or young you are.

Although there was considerable opposition to this bill, the governor did the right thing. Even though the law may be difficult to enforce, it is still a good idea.

If talking on a cell phone interferes with our ability to see what is right in front of us, need we even wonder how texting while driving might affect our ability to operate a car safely?

Now if we could just get motorists to obey the speed limit, signal before changing lanes and stop all the dangerous tailgating, I would feel a lot better about my daughter joining the ranks of Georgia’s licensed drivers.

Rick Diguette lives in Tucker. Reach him at rick.diguette@gmail.com.