HD Phones Could Reduce Accidents

I heard a report on the BBC today (link here) about the advent of HD phones, and how they improve the quality of the sound coming from a digital phone, described as "rubbish" by the BBC, to a quality as good or better than what the good old analog phones with their big speakers used to produce. The report explained how it's the tiny size of the miniature speaker that contributes the most to the terrible sound quality. Yadda yadda yadda... ok... another gadget in the race to have the best gadgets. I didn't really care.

But then... they said that HD mobile phones could actually reduce accidents. Huh? "How?" I thought. The reporter explained that the human mind spends so much time trying to decipher what the weak signal and abysmal sound quality conversation is trying to say, that it significantly distracts drivers, even when using 'hands free' sets. As a full time from-home-worker, I can attest to the massive distraction that poor sound quality in a phone can be in my normal work life. So while HD phones won't do much to improve land line call quality with large hand sets, it will greatly improve digital mobile phone quality... so we shall see.