Buy a case and screen protector. Designate a safe place to keep and store your phone when not in use. Keep your phone dry.

Clean your phone regularly. Recharge your cell phone regularly. Turn off the ringer on your phone when you are in a class. And most important do not use while driving.

To stay safe while driving, you have to lock away your phone completely. Studies have shown that, even in hands-free mode, phones are a distraction, meaning it could lead to accidents or injuries.

Ultimately, the responsibility is yours to apply common sense and caution, because opening up that new message is not worth an accident or worse.

Many people think distracted driving means texting and driving, but texting and driving makes up only one part.

Other types of distracted driving include playing with the radio, eating and drinking while driving, talking to passengers, and, yes, talking on the phone.

This means if you are talking on the phone while driving – even with a hands-free device – you are still putting yourself and others at risk.

94% of accidents are caused by driver error, as opposed to poor weather conditions or other factors. Thousands of people have died in crashes where phones were involved, and that statistic includes hands-free devices.

Part of the reason talking on a phone while driving is dangerous is because our brains are physically incapable of giving 100% of our attention to more than one task.

When you are driving and talking on the phone, you are splitting your attention between at least two activities – driving and talking.

Using mobile phone while driving is such a stupid cause of death that, before the advent of the cell phone it would only have been comparable with reading a book while driving or closing your eyes while driving.

Humans have a strange fondness for engaging in behaviours they know are likely to kill them – smoking, hard drugs, eating until you can not see your feet –  and the seemingly irresistible habit of using a phone while driving.