In case youve been living in a cave, theres been this hubbub about cell phone use in cars. Drivers yapping away, they say, are causing untold accidents. There oughta be a law, and in some places there is.

The whole cell-phone uproar makes sense, at least the common kind: It seems obvious that if youre talking, you aint watching the road. But just because something is obvious doesnt mean its true. I mentioned once before that in the 1970s it was obvious that global cooling was a major problem for the planet; the majority of scientists said so. (Theyve changed their minds.) In the early 80s, common sense said that VCR would kill the movie industry. (It hasnt.) Many people still think that you can catch a cold by being cold. (You cant.)

So it may seem obvious that talking on cell phones while driving is dangerous. But wait a second. Did you know that there were similar concerns about car radios? People were sureand it made common sense back thenthat listening to the radio distracted you from driving. (They were right. Hang on a moment.) Before that, the fuss was over windshield wipers: The back-and-forth motion would keep drivers from focusing on the road. Hmm.

One thing my auto insurer asks as part of its first notice of loss questionnaire is, Were you using your cell phone? The right answer is obvious, from a common-sense point of view.

But common sense may be wrong. In the Case of the Distracted Driver, the statistic that many people point to comes from a University of North Carolina study in May. It says that driver distraction was a factor in more than 15 percent of all serious accidents. Yikes! But when you look closer, you find that only 8.3 percent were distracted by something (as opposed to, say, falling asleep). And only 1.5 percent were using a cell phone.

In fact, more people were involved in accidents because they were eating or drinking in their cars (1.7 percent) than because they were using their cell phones. Ban drive-through fast food, I say. And lets not get into the drive-through liquor stores in New Mexico.

But wait, theres more. The study also says that almost twice as many people were distracted by adjusting vehicle/climate controls as by cell phone. Unfortunately, theres nothing to ban there. And can you imagine the uproar from the embattled music industry if you tried to ban radios, cassettes, and CDs from cars? They account for a whopping 11.4 percent of driver distraction! In fact, cell phone use is second to last of the nine causes of driver distraction the study lists (smoking is last).

And still, it seems, carriers are willing to use anecdotal evidence to place the blame. Would you rather be traveling at 65 mph next to someone on a cell phone whos watching the road, or next to someone playing with the radio or munching a Big Mac?

None of this is to say that using a cell phone in a car is safe. It may not be, and my common senselike many otherssays its foolish to do it. But at a time when carriers need to watch every dime, and when claims are in record territories, perhaps its more important to put the blame where it belongs, not on where common sense suggests. ANDREW KANTOR

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