Thank you for your review on the Kensington Hands-Free Visor Kit. Costco is currently selling it but I was a bit doubtful and wanted to get some opinions on this product. I purchase a cheaper model, but that didn't work so well so I didn't want to waste my time with buying and trying to get another one working without first seeing what others had to say about the product.

H. Walsh

But then, one wonders as to the safety of cell phone usage anyway given the recent (2008) study in Helsinki showing the effects of RF-EMF on human protein expression in the skin…:) (BMC Genomics, DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-77. – http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/9/77)

Kerry, my apologies for hijacking…

For those interested, there is an article (one of many I’m sure) that address this very issue at Science News (http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31426/title/Shifting_priorities_at_the_wheel)

“An intriguing neural response underlies vehicular mishaps associated with such distractions, say neuroscientist Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and his colleagues. Attending to what someone says galvanizes language-related brain areas while simultaneously reducing activity in spatial regions that coordinate driving behavior.

This finding suggests that people who combine relatively automatic tasks, such as speech comprehension and car driving, exceed a biological limit on the amount of systematic brain activity they can accommodate at one time, the researchers propose. As a result, the less-ingrained skill — in this case, driving, which is learned long after a person grasps a native language — takes a neural hit.”

However, one wonders what percentage of that 80% of distraction-caused accidents Mack mentions can be directly attributed to cell phone usage. Moreover, I would expect that, given the exponential growth and ubiquitous use of cell phones while driving, a corresponding increase in traffic fatalities should occur, but that data doesn’t seem to show this. Traffic fatalities are about the same as they were nearly 10 years ago (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx), with some fluctuations. I am aware of course this particular data doesn’t include all non-fatalities, merely fatalities. Mack, can you show the informational sources correlating increased traffic accidents/fatalities with increase cell phone usage?

Again, I don’t disagree that cell phone usage while driving is a potentially significant distraction, I’m just curious about the data demonstrating this.

I much appredciate your thoughtful and deeply felt response.

I must agree that distraction existed before cell phones and computers and will be around as long as there are brains to distract. But why not control the ones we can?

Nor can I argue that commmon sense would make it seem that going hands free would lower distraction. Unfortunately these facts remain true:

1. 80% of car accidents are due to or worsened by distraction;
2. Hands free or not doesn’t change the statistics an iota–the mental distraction is the problem, not fiddling with a device

So now, on the opinion level–if hands free makes some people less vigilant; if hands free makes some people believe they are safe to use a distracting device like cellphone or computer and so they do; then promoting such attitudes and devices seems to me too risky to do.

Your argument was, if using technology can save lives, then I want to use it to do so, but then you leap to hands free as your example, analogized to MRI’s and seat belts. Doesn’t follow.

I respectfully request that you and your fellow reviewers instead take a principled stand: just say no to promoting probably dangerous devices, and use the technology you command to spread the word.

I am not a doctrinaire person or physician. For example, I believe (know) some people can and do use narcotics but don’t become dependent or enter the drug culture. But I don’t support anyone in unnecessary use of narcotics. I believe the rare alcoholic can learn to drink responsibly but that most should abstain from alcohol altogether.

Most drivers should abstain from talking on the phone regardless of how their phone is supported or operated: it is the conversation that kills. I personally will not talk to a friend when the friend is driving. What a coup it would be for Gear Diary to be the first to take a stand for the safety of its readers: or at least do what David Pogue did in his i-Lane review yesterday and refer accurately to the data described above up front in every review.

Thanks for listening.

Mack

I never claimed that using such a device has a documented safety claim, other than making a personal, conscious decision to be responsible behind the wheel. The misuse of cell phones while driving for some is a distraction, but the use of a hands free device means that I have taken a personal interest in having ownership in minimizing distractions and better yet, I have two hands on the wheel at all times.

I don’t have the facts, but spilling hot coffee, putting on makeup, reading a memo, changing radio stations, inserting a cd, dogs in the backseat, a fellow passenger sneezing, and as much as I love kids, a crying baby is a distraction. What can I do as a responsible person to minimize those distractions inside the space I occupy in my car?

We all want to live in a pain free, distraction free world – unless my chiropractor guarantees that I can live with a pain free back, I cannot guarantee a distraction free environment behind the wheel. As human beings, we are prone to be distracted.

If the use of technology can provide ABS brakes and airbags for saving lives, just as MRI’s and laser surgery in your medical field, then I want to use a hands free device to carry on a conversation. So yes, in my opinion, the use of a Kensington Hands Free Car Kit is a good decision to manage my cell phone use in a responsible manner.

Based on your popularity do you honestly feel that the net impact of this review will not be adoptions followed by maimings and deaths? I don’t mean to be melodramatic, that is what is at stake.

Isn’t this your version of the Jon Stewart, where were you when wrt AIG and the financial crisis were hatching complaint about writerly responsibility? Shouldn’t you start a group, Reviewers Against Distracting Doodads? Do it, it would be RADD.

My interest? I am a physician. I see the damaged lives, the disability, the ruined families. I write this sort of letter regularly when I see tech reviews for dangerous products or ones that get the health stuff wrong. Let alone phony (as in made up)claims about safety. Clears the negative temp files in my conscience.

Please stop reviewing things that will predictably create disability and lost lives if adopted.

thanks

Mack Lipkin, MD