Make mom proud: hang up your cell phone while driving

I've done it. It seems half the people in town are doing it at any given time. A good portion of the others will likely do it tomorrow or next week.

Cell phones while driving are a dumb combination — your attention is pulled into the conversation and your hands are pulled off the wheel.

A good 99 percent of time, it probably won't cause any problems. Do you really want to risk your life or that of someone else to gossip about who did what to whom or run down your list of errands?

Hands-free devices, while helpful in keeping both hands on the wheel, don't really address the underlying problem — inattention.

In a 2006 study by the journal Human Factors, researchers found that driving while talking on a cell phone is worse than driving drunk. Drivers on cell phones were 5.36 times more likely to get in an accident than non-distracted drivers. Reaction time drops by 9 percent in terms of braking and by 19 percent in picking up speed after braking.

And the hands-free devices? Made no difference. Cell phone drivers still fared poorly.

The problem, researchers found, is the conversation.

Keeping connected is great — to make sure you stick around to have those conversations with your friends and loved ones, hang up the phone until you're parked.

Caroline Lobsinger is the managing editor of the Daily Bee.