Cell Phones

WHAT DO YOU do when there's a fire in the kitchen, or you wake up and hear burglars, or when somebody slips on the stairs and breaks a leg? For almost three decades, Americans have dialed 911. No matter where we were, those three numbers connected us to local dispatchers who could summon firefighters, police or paramedics. Most of the time, we didn't even have to know where we were. Thanks to technology, the dispatcher already knew and could send help. But now we're a nation of cell phone users - 170 million at last count - calling one another from cars, trains, bikes, jogging paths, restaurants and locker rooms, not to mention from different cities.

Often labeled as troublemakers when used on the road or in a crowded theater, cellular phones take on a Good Samaritan quality when their owners donate them to the elderly or to battered women for emergency use. In Howard County, volunteers and law enforcement officers have worked together this summer to distribute a mountain of cell phones to seniors in the county and beyond. Such programs are popping up all over the country, in part to extend the life of the estimated 30 million cell phones that go out of use each year.

Using a cell phone while driving quadruples the chances of becoming involved in a crash - whether or not the motorist is using a hands-free device - according to a report released yesterday by a leading traffic safety advocacy group. Yet two-thirds of Americans believe it is safer to talk on the phone while driving if one's hands are free, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported. The AAA Foundation report is a compilation of studies that looked - among other things - at billing records of drivers who had been involved in crashes to see whether they had been talking on cell phones just before the events.

Hurrying into court one recent morning to deal with a speeding ticket, Kandice Madison brushed past the notices posted on the glass doors of the Baltimore County District Court in Towson. "NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED IN DISTRICT COURT BUILDINGS," the signs, on letter-size paper, read. Moments later, Madison was back out the door, phone in hand. "It's kind of inconvenient," the 20-year-old West Baltimore resident said, expressing frustration at being told to return her phone to her car, which was parked eight blocks away.

In the continual cat-and-mouse game between corrections officials and the inmates they oversee, the newest form of contraband are cell phones smuggled into prisons by visitors, contractors and corrupt guards. Inmates use the devices to communicate with associates and direct criminal enterprises from behind prison walls almost as easily as if they were still on the streets. No one really knows how many contraband phones are floating around in the system, but over the last year Maryland has seen an increasing number of cases in which prisoners used cell phones to run drug operations, harass victims' families, plan escapes and even order witnesses killed to prevent them from testifying.

When someone calls the 911 emergency center from home, dispatchers can immediately see on a computer screen the caller's name, phone number and the address where the call originated. But that information is unavailable when a call is made from a cell phone. The Office of Public Safety wants dispatchers taking 911 calls from cell phones to receive phone numbers and locations. Howard S. Redman Jr., director of the Office of Public Safety, told the Carroll commissioners last week he wants to draft a letter to the seven cell phone companies that serve the county, requesting the cost to provide dispatchers with callers' cell phone numbers and locations.

NEW YORK - It was a small skirmish in New York state's battle to stop motorists from using hand-held cell phones while driving. Eliezar Chassine, a 48-year- old psychotherapist, received a ticket in April for talking on a cell phone while driving south on 11th Avenue in Manhattan. He decided to fight, saying he had been using a hands-free speakerphone, which is permitted, along with headsets. Chassine won his case last week when the police officer couldn't remember the alleged infraction.

Camilo Villegas had just one request for fans now empowered to bring cell phones to the PGA Tour's fairways. "Just turn (the sound) off, guys — 'vibrate,'" the Colombian pro said during an appearance to promote next month's Honda Classic. As if on cue, someone's phone announced its presence at the back of the room. "Heard one!" Villegas quipped. It won't be the last. Intermittent breaches of the old "Quiet, please" standard are bound to happen. Heck, they've been happening for years as folks sneaked their mobile devices onto the course in violation of the old ban. Now, though, they'll be more annoyance than outrage, an occupational hazard.

The technology that promises to keep people connected can leave Harford County 911 operators hanging on the line. Cell phones - a kind of modern-day life preserver - befuddle the county's dispatching system. They clog lines with unattended, accidental calls. And, when there is an emergency, cell phones leave no trace of who is calling or from where. "The pluses [of cell phones] far outweigh the minuses right now, but we just do not have the same level of service for wireless callers that we do for wired ones," said Scott Whitney, executive director for the state Emergency Numbers System Board in Baltimore.

It used to happen all the time. Chris Rhodes would stay after school for choir practice or the ski club or dance rehearsal. Invariably, her schedule would change, and the 15-year-old South Carroll High School student did not have any reliable way of getting in touch with her mother. This year, Chris got a cellular phone, which, like many classmates, she carries in school but does not turn on until the school day is over. Still, that's a violation of the Carroll County school system's policy -- a loosely enforced rule that allows students to keep wireless phones in their cars but prohibits the phones in school during the day. Carroll County is the latest of many Baltimore-area school systems and private schools to revisit those rules as cell phones become a more ubiquitous -- and some say necessary -- part of life in the wake of such national tragedies as the Columbine High School shooting and the terrorist attacks Sept.