BACK • 
Hello? HELLO??
Yes, more and more in our interconnected world, you can look across at the driver next to you and see them either talking into a phone, or apparently talking to themselves. The "Hello? HELLO??" comes from the irritating fact that often their conversations are interrupted as they move from one cell to another, or lose contact with the other person.
It seems that almost everyone has a cell phone now, which of course is not true, and it also seems that almost everyone in a car is using a cell phone-- that, of course, also is not true. However, recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did a survey and they say that only about 3% of Americans behind the wheel at any given time are talking on a handheld cell phone. That number really surprises me. It seems as if it’s a whole lot more.
At any rate, the survey estimates that about 500,000 drivers are using handheld cell phones at any point during a given day. That number, according to the survey, excludes the "hands free" headsets that some drivers use. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says usage rates nearly double during non-rush hour times, and they are higher among women, whites and drivers of vans and SUVs.
The National Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association estimates that almost 120 million Americans use cell phones. A survey conducted at the end of last year found that more than half the drivers on the road usually have a phone in their vehicle and nearly three-quarters of them confess to using their phones while driving.
The Highway Administration, in its survey of 12,000 vehicles across the country, found with a one-percentage-point margin of error that women use cell phones more than men by a margin of 3.4% to 2.7%. 4.8% of people driving vans and SUVs use cell phones on the road and at any given time, 3.7% of white drivers are using cell phone compared to 2.3% of black drivers, and 1.7% of people of other races.
Of course, the reason for all this is the growing concern about safety in the use of cell phones while driving. Currently, there really are no reliable figures on the roll cell phones play in crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that some form of driver distraction, including talking, eating, reading or changing radio stations, is probably involved in anywhere from 25% to 30% of all crashes. Last month, the state of New York became the first to pass a ban on using cell phones while driving. 39 other states are considering such legislation, and 23 foreign countries have established a ban on cell phone use while driving. This problem is not going to go away. If anything, it is going to get more prevalent. While it is something of an invasion of privacy to tell you what you can and cannot do in your own car, the safety card being played really trumps everything. In the future, it won’t be surprising to see more talk of restrictions and bans, and I’m not so sure that the elimination of handheld cell phones while driving really solves the problem. A recent poll found that 70% of those surveyed thought that drivers should be banned from using handheld cell phones. That figure surprises me, but it shows you that people are aware of a problem—or, at least, are being made to believe there is a problem. We obviously have not heard the last of this issue.
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The Federal Reserve is out with a new study concerning automated teller machines, you know, the ATMs that are on every street corner. They’re looking into the number of banks that impose surcharges for ATM usage, and the amount of the fees. The study said the percentage of banks imposing surcharges for ATM usage on customers that did not have accounts with the particular bank, actually fell 6% last year. 2000 was the first year since the Fed started collecting data on surcharges back in 1996 that the number of surcharges did not significantly increase. The Fed also noted that the average surcharges for banks imposing a surcharge (which is 75%) was unchanged last year, averaging $1.25.
The information wasn’t all bad. The Fed also noted in the same report that the number of financial institutions offering free checking accounts increased to 26%, and the minimum balance to open a free checking account was unchanged last year, at a relatively reasonable $60.
(Tom Butenhoff is a First Vice President with J. E. Liss and Company, Inc.
in Milwaukee. The views are his, and not necessarily those of Liss
Financial Services or the Job Connection/Hiring
Network.)