UAE Police Claim BlackBerry Outage Made Roads Safer 206
An anonymous reader writes "Road traffic accidents in Abu Dhabi and Dubai plummeted last week — and the local police have a theory as to why: drivers' BlackBerrys weren't working. Police in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have claimed that last week's worldwide BlackBerry outage, which frustrated business people around the world who were unable to communicate with their colleagues, had one positive result — less texting and reading of emails by people who should have been concentrating on driving instead. There could be other factors at play, however. For instance, popular UAE soccer player Theyab Awana was killed in a high speed crash near Abu Dhabi in September, amid claims that he was sending a message on his BlackBerry when he hit a lorry. The football star's father, Awana Ahmad Al Mosabi, made an emotional plea to people not to use smartphones while driving, and a Facebook campaign against the use of BlackBerry Messenger while driving has grown in popularity."
Re:Pay attention to the road! (Score:4, Informative)
I once, swear to god, was passed on the highway by a guy playing a clarinet while driving. Freaked me out. And I'm a driver who is usually going faster than most folks, so he was hauling. There are some nutters out there. I'm sure he'll end up killing someone.
Re:Don't Ban the whole US (Score:4, Informative)
There have been studies, and more well known, mythbusters did an episode on something very similar (is talking on a cellphone while driving just as bad as drinking and driving), and while mythbusters is a bit hollywood science at times, they confirmed the myth. Texting isn't that far off. And in other studies, is just as bad.
But don't take my word for it, take a look [reuters.com] at [theatlantic.com] all [cnet.com] the [caranddriver.com] studies and materials [wikipedia.org].
There's a reason why texting/talking on the phone is rapidly becoming illegal while driving. But hey! Maybe in Nebraska, facts and truths aren't the norm!