When the cell phone rings in class or at a concert it irritates us, but at least our lives are not in danger. When we travel, however, irresponsible cell phone users are more than annoying: they put our lives at risk. Many of us have seen drivers so distracted by the number and chatter that they resemble drunk drivers, weaving between lanes, for example, or nearly hitting pedestrians in a crosswalk. Numerous bills have been introduced in state legislatures to regulate the use of cell phones on the road, and now is the time to push for their passage. Regulation is needed because drivers who use cell phones are seriously impaired and because laws on negligent and reckless driving are not enough to punish offenders. No one can deny that cell phones have caused deaths and injuries on the road. Cell phones were implicated in three fatal crashes in November 1999 alone. In early November, two-year-old MorganPena was killed by a driver distracted by his cell phone. Morgan's mother, Patti Pena, reports that the driver made a stop sign at 45 miles per hour, struck my vehicle, and killed Morgan while she was sitting in the car seat. A week later, corrections officer Shannon Smith, who was guarding prisoners on the side of the road, was killed by a woman distracted by a phone call (Besthoff). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay On Thanksgiving, Weekend The title is on point. Opening sentences capture readers' attention. The thesis states Angela Daly's main point. Daly uses a clear topic sentence. The signal phrase names the author of the quotation to be followed. No page number available for this web source. The author's name is in parentheses; no pages are available. MLA Research Paper (Daly) Page 2 Source: Diana Hacker (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004). Daly 2 That same month, John and Carole Hall were killed when a Naval Academy midshipman crashed into their parked car. The driver told the court that when he looked up from his mobile phone as he was dialing a number, he was three feet from the car and had not had time to stop (Stockwell B8). Expert testimony, public opinion and even cartoons suggest that driving while making phone calls is dangerous. Frances Bents, an expert on the relationship between cell phones and accidents, estimates that between 450 and 1,000 accidents a year are related to cell phone use (Layton C9). In a survey released by Farmers Insurance Group, 87 percent of respondents said cell phones affect a driver's skills, and 40 percent reported having had close calls with drivers distracted by their phones. Many cartoons depicted the real dangers of distracted driving (see Fig. 1). Page numbers are provided when available. Clear topic sentences like this are used throughout the article. Illustration figure number, label, and source information.Fig. 1. Chan Lowe, cartoon, Washington Post July 22, 2000: A21.Page 3Source: Diana Hacker (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004).Daly 3Scientific research confirms the dangers of using your phone while traveling . In 1997 an important study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. The authors, Donald Redelmeier and Robert Tibshirani, studied 699 volunteers who made their cell phone bills available to confirm the times they made calls. The participants agreed to report anynon-fatal collision in which they were involved. By comparing the time of the accident with phone records, researchers assessed the dangers of driving while making phone calls. Here are their findings: We found that using a cell phone was associated with a risk of automobile collision that was about four times higher than that among these drivers when they did not use the cell phone. This relative risk is similar to the danger associated with driving with a blood alcohol level within the legal limit. (456)In media reports, this last claim was exaggerated, but the comparison to drunk driving is still striking. A 1998 study focused on Oklahoma, one of the few states to keep records of fatal accidents involving cell phones. Using police reports, John M. Violanti of the Rochester Institute of Technology investigated the relationship between traffic fatalities in Oklahoma and the use or presence of a cell phone. It found a nine-fold increase in risk of death when using a phone and a doubled risk simply when a phone was present in a vehicle (522-23). The summary begins with a catchphrase naming the author and ends with page numbers in parentheses. The summary and long quotes are introduced by a catchphrase naming the authors. Those who carry phones in their cars may tend to be more careless (or prone to distractions of all kinds) than those who don't. Some groups have argued that state traffic laws make legislation regulating cell phone use unnecessary. Unfortunately this is not true. Traffic safety laws vary from state to state, and drivers distracted by cell phones can get away with light punishments even when they cause fatal accidents. For example, although the ensign mentioned earlier had been charged with manslaughter in the deaths of John and Carole Hall, the judge was unable to return a guilty verdict. Under Maryland law, he could only find the defendant guilty of careless driving and impose a $500 fine (Layton C1). Such a light sentence is not unusual. The driver who killed Morgan Pena in Pennsylvania received two traffic tickets and a $50 fine – and kept his driving privileges (Pena). In Georgia, a young woman, distracted by her phone, hit and killed a two-year-old child; his sentence was ninety days of boot camp and five hundred hours of community service (Ippolito J1). Victims' families are understandably distressed by statutes that lead to such light sentences. When certain types of driver behavior prove particularly dangerous, we wisely develop special laws that make them illegal and impose specific punishments. Running a red light, not stopping for a school bus, and driving while intoxicated are obvious examples; making calls in a moving vehicle should be no exception. Unlike more general laws covering careless driving, specific laws leave little ambiguity for law enforcement officers and for judges and juries who impose penalties. Such laws have another important benefit: TheyDaly uses an analogy to justify passing a special law. The facts are documented with in-text citations: authors' names and page numbers (if available) in brackets. Daly countered the argument to the contrary. Page 5 Source: Diana Hacker (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004). Daly leaves no ambiguity for drivers. Currently, drivers can fool themselves into thinking they are using their phone in the car responsibly because the definition of “negligent driving is vague.” In December.