History of the social problem

The dangers of cell phone use while driving is a relatively new phenomenon. Phone use in cars has been around since the 1980s, with car phones, but they weren't nearly as popular as they are now.

It is estimated that 91% of Americans today have and use a cellphone, and obviously a good majority of those users use the phone while driving (arstechnica).

According to the Medical News Today, there is a marked decrease in the ability to maintain a consistent speed, and keeping the car in a single lane while people use cell phones while driving.

"New research shows that people have greater difficultly maintaining a fixed speed, or keeping their car safe in a single lane when performing tasks that simulated conversing on a mobile phone, than if they were driving without the distraction. Contrary to expectation, the speaking and listening were equally distracting. The research was conducted at the University of Illinois and will be published in the next edition of Applied Cognitive Psychology."

This is most certainly a recent problem, as cell phones were for a long time an exponentially growing trend. The old mindset was that phones would keep getting smaller and smaller, which was true.

(As clearly shown by this photo, anonymous cell models ftw!)

Interestingly enough, in today's day and age, cell phones have stopped getting smaller. They have in fact grown slightly, however, this size increase is not proportional to their increase in functionality, going from making phone calls to having fully capable web browsers right on the phone. Cell phone use while driving now not only covers making calls, but perhaps even more deadly, the dangers of texting while driving. Texting while driving is now one of the main issues, especially in teenagers between the ages of 16 and 17

"Drivers younger than 20 had the highest distracted-driving fatality rate among all age groups last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Drivers 20 to 29 ranked second.
The administration said that 5,870 people died and about 515,000 were injured last year in accidents attributed to distracted driving." (Washington Post)

Clearly, texting while driving is a huge issue in society today, and society is working hard to adapt and keep drivers safer on the roads