It should be illegal for people to use cell phones while driving

When I tried to click on your first 3 sources, they all came up as "page not found" for me, so if you could please post them again it would be appreciated. "the risks associated with talking on the phone are no worse than those associated with performing any other similar task in the car, such as eating. If cell phone usage were to be banned, it would be necessary to also ban many other similar tasks." First of all, that is Slippery Slope. "The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question."(1) The risks associated are worse, because the number one source of driver inattention is cell phone use, not eating or any other similar task, according to a Virginia Tech 100-car study for NHTSA. (2) "the cost of banning cell phone usage is rather high" This is based on the 2000 study, which was commissioned solely by AT&T Wireless and not an independent source. And besides, too many factors go into play in determining how such numbers are estimated, which can change constantly at any moment in time. The researchers even said it themselves: "the estimate is imprecise." (3) "This is nothing but a statistic; it lacks proof." What constitutes as proof in your opinion? Would you accept the dictionary.com definition: "evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth?" A 1997 study of Canadian drivers "who agreed to have their cell phone records scrutinized found that the risk of an accident was four times greater while a driver was using the phone." According to an in-depth analysis by the Los Angeles Times, "at least 4,699 reported accidents were blamed on drivers using cell phones, and those crashes killed 31 people and injured 2,786," in California in 2001. (4) "For one, there is the economic cost of preventing potentially crucial calls from being made while in the car. Yes, life is more valuable than simple economic costs, but at what point do we draw the line? Would we be willing to bankrupt a nation just to save one individual? No, and this is exactly why the economic cost is important." Again, what is wrong with someone pulling over into an emergency lane on the highway to answer "potentially crucial calls" instead of continuing to drive distracted? Why not put on your emergency lights if you cannot move over and slow down, letting other drivers go around you while you are focused on the call? What constitutes a potentially crucial call anyway? "Two, we must take into consideration the entire population. There are billions of people who ride in cars every day; only 600,000 or so per YEAR get in an accident, and barely half of those even involve any injury. The cost of cell phone usage is rather small." I am talking only about the estimated 250,000,000 who live in the United States and drive cars, not the entire world. This is the same 600,000 car accidents that can be easily curbed with a federal law, is it not? The cost of cell phone usage is rather large for those 600,000+ people who get into accidents. Let me give you an example to prove this. You said that barely half of those accidents involve any injury, so I will leave out 300,000 accidents for the sake of this example. Out of 300,000 accidents, let's say half of those require bumper repair due to a rear end collision. According to car expert David Caulfield, the average bumper repair range is $300-700 dollars, which amounts to between $45,000,000 and $105,000,000 total. (5) Keep in mind that this is only a minor rear end collision with no injuries involved. This example does not even take into account how much more the people who caused the accident would have to pay on their car insurance. "someone with a blood alcohol content of 0.1% (only just above the legal limit for operating an automobile [4]) is five times more likely to get in an accident than someone who is talking on the phone." Source? Another study by the University of Utah in 2006 found that "maneuvering through traffic while talking on the phone increases the likelihood of an accident five-fold and is actually more dangerous than driving drunk." Also, how is 5 fallacious? 5 States is a fact, and it is actually 6: http://www.iihs.org... Please explain for me. 1. http://www.nizkor.org... 2.http://www.nhtsa.gov... 3. Harvard Center for Risk Analysis 4. http://articles.latimes.com... 5. http://en.allexperts.com...