Suffering leads lawyer to hang up car phone

Daniel J. Snow looked down for just a second to end a call. That's when he rear-ended a car. He has had some painful months now to reflect on driving safety.

By CARRIE JOHNSON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 21, 2001

INVERNESS -- Attorney Daniel J. Snow thought he was one of the good guys.

Concerned about reports of car wrecks caused by drivers preoccupied by hand-held cellular phones, Snow bought himself a special "hands-free" set that would allow him to chat without taking his eyes off the road.

But the phone wasn't completely without distractions. Snow still needed to look down to push a button to end a call. That's what he was doing the morning of April 5 when he rammed into the back of a van on S Apopka Avenue.

The bone in Snow's right thigh snapped in two places, his left wrist was broken, and his view of cell phones changed forever.

"I loved the convenience," said Snow, 40, of Inverness. "But now that convenience is just not worth it to me. I could have killed somebody. I could have killed a child."

According to a report prepared by the Florida Highway Patrol, the driver of the van, Annette Tremante, 63, and her 12-year-old daughter, Leanna, suffered only minor injuries in the crash. The impact knocked their van 63 feet into a thicket.

Snow fared much worse. He was taken to Citrus Memorial Hospital, where he would spend the next nine days as doctors worked to repair his leg. His blue Pontiac Firebird was totaled. Unable to get around without a wheelchair or a walker, Snow had to put his law practice on hold for a couple of months.

Today, Snow can walk for short periods with the help of a walker. He has returned to the courtroom. And doctors tell him he can start driving again soon.

But one thing's certain: Snow won't be outfitting his new car with another cell phone.

"It's just not worth the risk," he said.

The potential dangers of talking on a cellular phone while driving have been debated throughout the country, due to a number of high-profile crashes caused by distracted drivers. A handful of municipalities have restricted the use of phones while driving, including Suffolk, N.Y.; Carteret, N.J.; and Brooklyn, Ohio.

However, the hands-free versions have largely escaped public scrutiny. Most of the localities that restrict the use of mobile phones while driving make exceptions for drivers who use an earpiece or hands-free attachment.

That's a mistake, said Patricia Pena, founder of Advocates for Cell Phone Safety. The hands-free version has the potential to be just as distracting as a hand-held version, she said.

"Your full attention should always be on the road," said Pena, whose 2-year-old daughter Morgan Lee was killed by a driver using a cell phone.

A 1997 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that talking on a cell phone quadrupled a driver's chances of getting into a wreck. It also said it was the distraction of the conversation itself, not the act of dialing or holding the phone, that accounted for most of the increased risk.

Pena's organization is fighting for a complete ban on the use of cellular phones in moving vehicles. Drivers should pull over and park if they need to make a call, she said.

"Do you really want the guy driving next to your wife and children multitasking while driving?" Pena asked.

But representatives from the wireless telephone industry say the key to safety is public education, not legislation. Dee Yankoskie, who is with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group in Washington, D.C., points to the potential life-saving benefits: More than 120,000 emergency calls are made from cell phones every day, she said.

Drivers face a multitude of distractions, from eating to changing a radio station to attending to a fussy baby. The key is knowing when to pull over, Yankoskie said.

"Ask yourself, is this the appropriate time to be making this call?" she said. "If it's at night and it's raining and you're driving through construction, you probably shouldn't be on the phone."

But Snow said he's through tempting fate. The gregarious lawyer, who traveled to Albania in 1999 to gather testimony for the International War Crimes Tribunal, has decreed that not only is he giving up his mobile phone while driving, he swears he'll never speed again.

"And believe me, I have sped in the past," Snow said.

In addition to his two months of immobility and the lingering pain in his leg, Snow received a citation for careless driving for the wreck. But he's not complaining. Snow's grateful just to be alive.

"It could have been so much worse," he said.

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