Unit 2: Vocabulary from Readings 3

This list covers "Private Eyes," "Representative Urges Action on the Media," "Parents Share Son’s Fatal Text Message to Warn Against Texting & Driving," "The Science Behind Distracted Driving," "How the Brain Reacts," and “Cellphones and driving: As dangerous as we think?”
11 words 12 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. prosecutor
    an official conducting criminal cases on behalf of the state
    Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor, states that requiring someone’s password to their profile is, “akin to requiring [their] house keys.”
  2. forfeiture
    the act of losing something as a penalty
    Penalties for violation can range from forfeiture of driver’s licenses and media counseling to fines for parents or removal of media tools (TVs, computers, phones, etc.).
  3. mundane
    found in the ordinary course of events
    Heit died shortly after the April 3 crash, but his parents and police are hoping the photo of the mundane text on his iPhone will serve as a stark reminder to drivers.
  4. simulator
    machine that models an environment for training or research
    With two sophisticated driving simulators, an instrumented vehicle, an eye tracker, and a way to measure brain activity, Strayer and his team at the University of Utah have been able to pinpoint what’s happening when a person texts while driving.
  5. concurrently
    overlapping in duration
    The parietal lobe activation associated with spatial processing in driving decreased by 37 percent when participants concurrently listened to the sentences.
  6. deterioration
    a symptom of reduced quality or strength
    We found that listening comprehension tasks drew mental resources away from driving and produced a deterioration in driving performance, even though the drivers weren’t holding or dialing a phone.
  7. ordinance
    a statute enacted by a city government
    An ordinance being considered in Evanston would go further and prohibit motorists in that town from talking on cellphones of any kind—including hands-free.
  8. conclusive
    forming a decisive end or resolution
    But two decades of research done in the U.S. and abroad have not yielded conclusive data about the impact cellphones have on driving safety, it appears.
  9. consensus
    agreement in the judgment reached by a group as a whole
    Nor is there a consensus that hands-free devices make for safer driving than handheld cellphones.
  10. prohibition
    a decree that bans something
    Proponents of cellphone restrictions—whether total bans or prohibition of handheld phones—can cite some studies to back up their positions.
  11. fatality
    a death resulting from an accident or a disaster
    The study concluded that while overall traffic fatalities of all kinds dropped by 22 percent, fatalities caused by drivers who were talking on a handheld phone at the time of the crash dropped nearly 50 percent.
Created on Thu Jan 07 11:46:31 EST 2021 (updated Mon Jan 11 17:03:27 EST 2021)

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