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Why Did the Feds Bury Data on Cell-Phone Dangers?
Last October, we reported what the New York Times has now discovered—something we've all probably suspected, but had little hard data to go on: that driving a car while yakking or texting on an electronic device is an extremely risky proposition. And that the hands-free laws many states have enacted are of little value, a politically expedient solution that is unlikely to save lives, but lets lawmakers seem to be doing something without incurring the wrath of the powerful cell phone industry.
The moving story by Mother Jones contributor Myron Levin involved the plight of the Teaters, a Michigan family whose 12-year-old (pictured) was killed by a chatting motorist, and his father's determination to get some answers. The driver, Levin reported, "had clear skies and good visibility. She was sober. And yet she had failed to process a whole string of visual cues. To Dave Teater, this made no sense at all—so he began to do some research." Key to Levin's story was the quashing, by top Transportation Department officials, of an extensive report on cell-phone driving risks that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) had intended to make public.
That report might have saved lives had it been released as intended back in 2003. It included the first official government estimate of the number of people killed on the road by cell phone use each year—nearly 1,000. As noted in the story, that's a conservative estimate. (Harvard researchers put the number closer to 2,600.) But any government acknowledgement of the problem would have done much to raise awareness. DOT brass also put the kibosh on a letter that NHTSA officials had composed to the governors of every state, warning that hands-free legislation was unlikely to make their citizens safer. Without this knowledge, states forged ahead with their bills.
Not long after the original story, we reported on a lawsuit by Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety to force the government to reveal its trove of documents related to driving distractions. That suit has finally yielded results. "By keeping this information secret from the public for the past six years, the government has endangered even more lives," the victorious plaintiffs noted in a press release today touting the release of hundreds of pages of documents, which "reflect facts about safety risks that the public had every right to see."
Also from the release:
These documents show that it is the conversation itself, not the device used to hear it, that causes “inattention blindness,” a cognitive state that slows a driver’s reaction time and limits his ability to detect changes in road conditions. Further, well-documented scientific research and driving simulations analyzed in the NHTSA documents found that drivers using hands-free technology talk on the phone with greater frequency and for longer intervals.
“People died in crashes because the government withheld this information,” Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, noted in the release. “The studies NHTSA concealed showed that all cell phone use is as hazardous as drinking and driving.”
"A travesty," was how Public Citizen attorney Margaret Kwoka described the agency's failure to release the documents in response to an earlier freedom of information act request, forcing the groups to sue. The Center is now petitioning NHTSA to support state programs to limit any cell phone use while driving, and to take steps to ensure that in-vehicle communications systems won't let drivers chat while the vehicle is moving.
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CB radios were commonly used
CB radios were commonly used for years and no one raised a safety issue. If someone is speaking on the phone while driving and using an earpiece, this should be no different then having a conversation with passengers in the same car.
Doing anything while driving is a distraction. Including reaching into one's pocket to get coins for a toll. Some people talk endlessly while driving and so their distraction level is increased accordingly. But the bottom line is this. Some people's driving sucks. This falls into three categories. Incompetent, evil and incompetent+evil. Add distractions to these categories and the law of probabilities prevails. The solution is to pay adequate attention all the time.
The reason CB/Amateur radio is safer
Is because it's a half duplex conversation. A cell phone is a full duplex format.
That said there are other distractions you'll never hear about like GPS units, car radios, etc.
The only way we'll ever solve this is if we take the human beings out of the equation completely. Autonomous cars are coming, we're starting to see feature filter into the high end models now. Once we let the car drive itself, you don't have to worry about the fact that our visual and aural communications get sorted in the same basic structures.
You can never take the human
You can never take the human being out of the car even with autonomous cars. Who made the autonomous cars? Human beings who designed the software and hardware that made the car. Let's not kid ourselves. You can't remove the human from that equation.
No one raised a CB related
No one raised a CB related safety issue? You're quite sure? Another difference between CBs and cell phones is that, even at the height of their popularity, CBs were not as ubiquitous as cell phones. I'll guestimate that between 65%-75% of drivers routinely use their cells on the road. How could that NOT be a safety issue?
CB's did NOT require
CB's did NOT require dialing, nor texting, to call and operate. You simply pushed the side button on the microphone, called the persons' name you wanted to speak to, and they (maybe) responded.
It's the searching addresses, trying to change focus from long-distance (out the windshield) to close-up (the tiny keyboard on the phone) and back again that are SO distracting.
If it's SO important to talk to that person RIGHT NOW, pull over to the side of the road (or someplace safe) and park and talk!
Yes but A CHILD
Yes but A CHILD DIED!!!!
Lets ban conversations in cars, lets sue the automakers for making cars quiet enough to talk in, and lets sue the state for not making roads that auto alert you when anything could go wrong!!!
Y'know it JUST MAY BE that there are just a lot more stupid inattentive people in the world, and as such they wreck more. On the phone off the phone with the 5 dogs running around on their laps or not.
I always assume everyone on the road around me is seconds away from a diabetes coma, an eplileptic seizure, or a binge sneezing fit and a gun. I'm a hard core gamer with hand/eye co-ordination that would make your mind spin and I've still been in accidents.
People will drive, some will wreck, some will die. Aside from things like being drunk there's nothing huge that's going to play a factor. This woman could just as easily been distracted by a bee that flew in the car, had a piece of debris blow out of her AC vent into her eye or had a muscle cramp. Life is hard people, many will enter few will win, get over it. In the US people have learned to use witch hunts, lawsuits and blame as their suite of tools to deal with grief.
Constructive Solutions
tagged as:- solution
In the Trunk (above) makes a good point about how our society tends to jump to the courts to solve this sort of issue. We want government to protect us by either suing the "bad guys" out of existence or banning activities that lead some people to have problems.
What if the acute distractions from cell phone conversations in cars stems mostly from current conversational etiquette? What if that etiquette is mailable? These are questions that need serious study and can result in saving lives without resorting to a heavy handed prohibition on cell phones.
Cell phone use while driving is a relatively new phenomenon for society at large. When people talk on cells they are likely to feel bound by the some conversational etiquette as any other time they talk on a phone, including paying attention to the person on the other end as their highest priority.
This may explain the results of the study that found that people talking on cells were sometimes as bad as drunk drivers. The participants probably felt it was necessary to focus on the conversation regardless of what was happening in the driving simulator. Their problems were probably magnified by the setting. They were in simulators (no real danger) and they were in a study where they were supposed to follow instructions which included talking to a person on the other end of the line. So, they felt obligated to talk regardless of conditions and there was no real threat to their safety and of course they did poorly.
I'd like to see that study done again, do it the same way, but this time create an additional test group which is given a new set of instructions regarding their conversational etiquette during the test. The new instructions allow the driver to ignore the conversation for any reason, at any moment and for any length of time. My bet is that the group with modified social etiquette will have significantly fewer problems paying attention to important driving cues and it would be very interesting to see just how much better.
I wonder if our cell phone society needs to be trained to pay attention to the road. We may just need to learn new etiquette. It has to be ok to ignore a conversation from time to time because the road is the highest priority. People on the other end of the call have to know and even expect that the driver they are talking with will duck out of the conversation periodically due to the road's demands.
For groups who are really serious about trying to ban cell phone use in cars, I'd challenge you to back some unbiased research on this topic, see if it is possible to drive safely while talking if you have appropriate etiquette that puts driving as the highest priority. Then, if changing the etiquette significantly changes the outcome, spend your energy on public service announcements and driver education so that people can learn to use cell phones more safely.
If the etiquette change does not improve attention to the road then such a study would provide the data needed to demonstrate to skeptics like me that we really can't drive safely while using a cell phone regardless of how we approach it. For now I believe the study on this issue is seriously flawed, the methodology is too far removed from reality and some of us have learned alternate techniques/etiquette that keep our attention on the road as our highest priority.
My friends and colleagues are used to me saying, "Sorry, driving, I missed what you were saying..." That expectation that I can duck out of a conversation at any moment makes a huge difference on my ability to pay attention to the road and I believe it makes me a relatively safe hands-free cell phone user when I'm driving.
You bring up a good point
You bring up a good point about the tendency of the media to enable witch-hunts motivated by grief and confusion. However, you're suggesting that cell phone usage is somehow out of our control, and thus, not worth addressing. However, the difference between cell-phone usage and those other car mishaps is that we not only know that cell phone usage can lead to accidents, but we can do something about it. It's good to avoid thinking about the things we can't control, but the same is definitely not true of those things that we can control.
cell phones and driving
"If someone is speaking on the phone while driving and using an earpiece, this should be no different then having a conversation with passengers in the same car."
Wrong. What matters here is called "cognitive load". The brain has finite resources to process information, and the signal-to-noise ratio of cell phone speech is typically much worse than that of a fellow passenger. (It may also be worse than radio speech, though I don't know of any studies). The attentional and cognitive load on the brain is therefore greater.
cellphone conversation different than passenger
There is a difference between cellphone conversation and conversation with passengers. When you are talking to someone in the same car with you, both conversation participants are involved setting. Often it is the non-driver who might point out stopped traffic ahead or a car driving dangerous nearby. But the cell phone conversation partner has no connection to the drivers setting. I have been a driver many a time when the passenger has pointed out a danger on the roadway. This is not possible with cellphone conversation.
This is simply wrong and has
This is simply wrong and has been proven wrong repeatedly. When the person you are speaking to is not in the same car, they don't see what is going on and don't shut up when things get hairy as other riders do. They also can't help detect hazards that the driver doesn't see.
I have to agree with the
I have to agree with the previous commenter. I think there is a difference though when a driver is chatting with a passenger in the front seat than over a cell line. The passenger is still a source of distraction, but they are also subject to the stimulus of driving. This at least means there is a chance for the conversation to pause at the right times or more generally for the passenger's reactions to augment the drivers awareness. In the case of a cell phone, the speaker on the other end of the line has no awareness of what's going on in the car except through audio queues: honking horns, screeching tires, smashing glass, that kind of thing.
Passenger Conversation
I can't count the number of idiot drivers I've seen who insist on staring at the passenger they're talking to rather than keeping an eye on the road. I was rear-ended by one once at a red light. I saw in my rear-view mirror yakking away staring at the passenger just before she hit me.
If hands-free cell phone conversations are banned, the all forms of distraction, including in-car conversation, smoking (a documented dangerous distraction), etc need to be banned.
Trouble is, it's all unenforceable. Hands-free headsets are now so small that no cop will ever see one, even stopped right behind you at a light. It can easily be ditched if you get pulled over for something else. The only time someone might get caught is if they actually have an accident.
Some passengers insist that
Some passengers insist that the driver look at them during a conversation. My ex-husband brought up in court during the divorce proceeding that one of my many "faults" was that I would not look at him in the front passenger seat while I was driving but insisted on looking straight ahead. I have never rear-ended another vehicle or hit a person or animal, even when they're running across the road and I've been driving for over 40 years. Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, no cell phone, limited conversation, never looking at anyone else in the auto.
I think it's the
I think it's the interactivity of a cell phone conversation that's takes over your mind. It's not just like an adult in the passenger seat who can see the traffic developments just as well as you and may even refocus your attention appropriately. It's more like the two fighting brats in the back seats who make you turn around and reach back there.
There is definitely a
There is definitely a difference between a telephone conversation and a live conversation. Just try an experiment yourself. How well can you focus on an interruption when talking on the phone vs. how well can you focus on an interruption when having a live conversation? The conclusions of the scientific studies are consistent with my own observations: Telephones are more distracting because they take more mental concentration to carry on.
Second point. The fact that there are an infinite number of other distractions for drivers does not justify a laissez-faire attitude towards cell phones. I am a cyclist and I ride past an ice cream store regularly. Stupid drivers try to drive while eating ice cream. And many "undistracted" drivers just don't see cyclists (or pedestrians) because they have poor driving habits. But we shouldn't say "oh well, most people are not careful enough" and neglect the opportunity to do what we can to improve the situation to the extent that we can.
There is definitely a difference between a telephone conversatio
TRM wrote "There is definitely a difference between a telephone conversation and a live conversation."
I agree that there is a difference between a phone conversation and a live one. But that's about all I agree with. I will admit to being one of those drivers who talks on the phone while driving. In fact, I lost my headset for months and couldn't afford to buy a new one so I was that jerk not even using a headset. So I am g oing to compare my experiences with live converstaion vs. hands free phone and no hands free phoen while driving. I agree that no hands free phone conversations while driving are a bad idea. You do not have the same level of control over your vehicle and you are concentrating on keepingthe phone at your ear. All very distracting. However, I find that live conversations are much more distracting for me that a hands free phone conversation. The reason is that in a live conversation, the people are actually in the car talking to me or to each other. I don't look at my passengers when i am talking to them, but I have ridden in cars with peopel wo do, and all I could think was "please turn back to the road, please." For myself, my phone conversation takes 2nd priotrity to me driving. the cell ophone conversation is always in the background and is never very in depth because my mental resources are allocated to the road. I have no problem being rude to whoever is on the other end and not listeningto them. I also have no problem cuttingthe conversation off because of outside conditions. The fact is, it all comes down to discipline. I have been in 3 accidents, and none of them were related to cell phone use as neither myself nor the other drivers were using phones at the time. Accidents happen. Driving is dangerous. Crossing the street is dangerous. Let's require that everyone wrap themselves in bubble wrap and hide inside because something bad might happen.
I was recently stopped at a
I was recently stopped at a suburban stop sign and was about to cross the intersection when a woman in a mini van sailed right through it, cell in her left hand, gesturing with her right. Over the years, it's been my habit to look both directions even if there's no other traffic. This saved my life then and several other times when similar misadventures were averted. My other answer to this: loud three tone air horns.
CB Radios were not in 80% of
CB Radios were not in 80% of the US populations hands. Also, when you hold a conversation with a passenger in the car there is another person to tell you to look out before you kill them as well.
I'm sure that after tackling
I'm sure that after tackling health care reform, cap-and-trade, stimulating the economy and reforming federal college loans, Obama will solve this problem.
For example, as de facto head of GM, he can force Detroit to install scramblers that will prevent cell phones from being used in the car while the engine is running.
Good idea! I hope that my
Good idea! I hope that my Senator's or Congressperson put forth a bill to ban cell phone use in cars TOTALLY!!! I can see that you agree!
cell phones
macgruber your an idiot
Texting is even worse
This past year there have been a rash of collisions at a nearby traffic light where some fool plows into the back end of someone in the line waiting at a red light. Once it was my wife who was slammed so hard she struck the stopped car ahead which hit the car in front of it.
For traffic accidents our local police have a non-police first responder who can take info if the accident is minor. I talked with him and he said the increase in collisions was from (usually young) drivers texting while driving and failing to note that the traffic ahead has stopped for a red light.
Tripp
Cellphones & vehicles
Concealment of cellphone risks by government is no surprise, given that the involved telecoms can seemingly do as they please & apparently have unlimited influence over our 'leader's.
As a cop for 30 years I learned to use a police radio in a moving car, but still had dangerous moments when circumstances conspired with info overload & unexpected traffic.
In my experience cellphones are far more likely to cause driver distraction as the users seem to 'forget' that their actually driving a car rather than discussing personal matters.
Driver's Education
I don't see how we can stop people from using cell phones in their cars. What we can do is to improve Driver's Education as to the dangers of distractions.
When I was in school, we had a ONE YEAR course in Driver's Education. Driving for young people was such a concern that the California schools had stopped combining the course it with citizenship. When i look at how easy it is to get a license today, and how little education there is on proper driving, it is very scary!
Regrettably, with the attitude in California that we want all of the services of a great society, but refuse to pay taxes to get them, we will have many more people injured and killed on the road. Needlessly, in my opinion.
And truthfully, the money we save in not offering those courses, we pay for several fold, by taxpayers having to pay for lifelong rehabilitation to people maimed in traffic accidents. Go to a Stroke/Brain Injury clinic and see how many wonderful people's lives are devastated by another person's moment of discraction...
Mexico is ahead of the curve?
Not to seem to disparage our friends to the south but they haven't allowed cell phone conversations and driving for easily 10 years.
So ask yourself this multiple choice question, who's better at their jobs:
a. Mexican Government (see current drug wars at protecting their citizens)
b. Lobbyists protecting client interests.
I'm just saying.....
re Mexico is ahead of the curve?
And how would you factor Mexico's vastly superior healthcare system into your merry little jibe?
The point here was to infer,
The point here was to infer, apparently not very well, that we are allowing the needs of one industry to outweigh the needs of our society - once again....
And that with our (the US) elitist approach to the rest of the world, there are countries we consider 'below' us on the totem pole making safety decisions that work against a pretty profitable industry's profit.
But to the other point: have you ever been to a Mexican hospital? yikes.
cell phones and driving
A "hands-free" cell phone contributes about as much to safer driving as a dashboard beverage holder contributes to safer drinking and driving.
One Of Many Distractions
The study I saw, done by the AAA if memory serves, listed cell phone use while driving as a cause of accidents, but well down the list. While I've forgotten the exact rating position, the top causes of accidents due to motorist distraction were changing the radio, eating, or spilling, food. While it would obviously help if the government took a position on how distractions rate for causing accidents, it would be far more helpful if the laws made driving while distracted a serious charge that would result in an escalating loss of your driving privileges for each repeated offense.
Cops should be pulling over anyone who is doing anything other than driving their car, while behind the wheel, and that should include leaning over the seat to deal with children. If you are not prepared to focus on the most important task at hand, while behind the wheel of your vehicle: Driving, then you should either pull over of have someone else drive you, no ifs, ands or buts. If' you're caught trying to separate your squabbling children, looking at a map or spreadsheet, or talking, eating, performing acts of hygiene or cosmetics, while driving a moving vehicle, you should lose your license for a set period of time. If you're caught again, you lose it again, for even more time (I would think a year for the second offense would be reasonable). In short, when you're behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, you have one task, and one task only, and that is to give your undivided attention to the roadway and all which that entails. Period.
CBs vs Phones
A conversation over a radio; depress the button, transmit, release the button--listen, repeat. Is different than a conversation on a telephone. Truckers and others relay information and generally speak in shorter bursts than those on telephones who are mentally receding from the world in front of them as they get involved in the conversation. The few times I've talked on a phone while driving, I could feel myself shrinking inward, both in how I felt relative to the outside world, and how my vision was affected, and how I turned my head, or more importantly, didn't turn my head. It's different even than conversations with people in the car, where you can still pay attention to what's going on, although you still tend to divert your attention to look at the people with whom your are talking, and some folks--we've all seen them--can't even manage to avoid looking at all, as they fly down the road talking to edith in the front and harry in the rear, looking at each and rarely at the road...
Talking or texting while driving.
I would wager that even listening to music or talk radio has the same distracting effect on the driver. I'd like to see a study done on this. Screaming kids certainly do, as anyone with children can attest. Tests have very likely been done on the ability to do tasks in a noisy environment.
Is anyone surprized that the
Is anyone surprized that the Bush Admin gave priority to the profits of the cell phome industry over the lives of individuals?
Lot of very interesting and
Lot of very interesting and thought provoking comments here, folks! One thing to keep in mind - one CANNOT Legislate competence OR intelligence. Just won't work! That said, It needs to be remembered that Driving a Vehicle is a PRIVILEGE and NOT a RIGHT!!! People should be REQUIRED to take and PASS a rigorous Driver Training course before being issued a LEARNERS Permit, and then earning a License. It IS way to easy to get a License! Scary drivers out there!!!
Part of the problem with
Part of the problem with cell phones is that you're trying to listen with only one ear. I use a bluetooth headphone, that sits on the ear, so minimal interference with normal hearing. It puts the voice of the caller right in the middle of your head. Much less distracting than trying to use just one ear. In fact, it's just like talking to yourself. Which, come to think of it, can be just as much of a distraction as talking to someone else. More, because I'm more interesting than most of the people I talk to. 7;-]
So there are distractions everywhere. One of the earlier posters was correct. The only cure is to automate the whole process. Then all we'll have to worry about is mechanical failure. But cheap Chinese computers never fail, right?
Isn't it already automated?
I think a big part of the problem is that too many people on the road think that the process of driving a car is already automated.
A Tougher Question
I love my GPS. If it were not for it I would still be wondering around Boston trying to find that party that I went to last March.
It is distracting though. I need to glance at it to review the map to know which right to take when the voice says to turn right. And from time to time I need to tap in instructions. There is a great temptation to do this while still driving and not make a questionable exit to find a place to stop and do it safely.
What are the trade-offs? It used to be dangerous to try to navigate by notes and maps too. Is the GPS really a safer alternative?
I had a lot of replies. I
I had a lot of replies. I will try to address the group, et al.
'1/2 Duplex (CB) versus full duplex (cell).'
Unconvincing. Especially so because the CB air waves were shared and often the listener had to differentiate between several parallel conversations and time the keying of the Mic properly. Could'nt it be more simple? Perhaps CB radio use was considered less dangerous because the types of "gear-heads" who used CB were naturally better and more skilled drivers?
"I'll guestimate that between 65%-75% of drivers routinely use their cells on the road. How could that NOT be a safety issue?"
Your point avoids the core question. Its not the percentage of people using the various devices. That's like saying that watching TV while driving becomes safer if only 5% of the drivers do it. If CB radios caused accidents people would have formed the equivalent of "Mothers Against Drunk Drivers" groups.
"Wrong. What matters here is called "cognitive load". The brain has finite resources to process information, and the signal-to-noise ratio of cell phone speech is typically much worse than that of a fellow passenger. (It may also be worse than radio speech, though I don't know of any studies). The attentional and cognitive load on the brain is therefore greater."
I know a woman who can't get on an escalator because she lacks adequate coordination. She has no business driving, with or without distractions. If a car has a driver and 3 passengers and all three are yammering, this can not be considered less of a "load" then one person speaking to one other person using a earpiece. I don't buy it.
I will wrap up now: I live in a very congested zone. My in-laws visit from the rural south and are afraid to drive on my highways. Whenever I see a drifting driver or other such stupidity (involving being spaced-out) rather then aggressive (a different category entirely) in many instances the driver has a cell phone to their face and is not using a hands free system. What does this indicate? First, they have no regard for the law since it is illegal. So that is a definite defect in itself which has to cause accidents. Sheer disregard for the rules. Its the same as the person who refuses to leave the ocean when the rip-tide flag goes up. The difference here is that a drowned swimmer does not run over pedestrians in the process.
BTW: Professional pilots and especially military pilots are trained to handle dozens of switches, dials, buttons, knobs, voices, readouts, plus munitions delivery. They pay adequate attention to do so. If I am driving and a passenger asks me a question, it is not uncommon that I ignore them until my 'CPU' settles. I do the same when speaking on the hands-free while driving.
I do think that texting should be automatically banned when in motion. This is possible because the cell towers sense how fast the cell signal is traveling. It would probably not work for slow speed city traffic. Plus, the passengers who like to text while driving would have that luxury removed. But I favor it as a safety measure because texting while operating a car is deadlier then drunk driving.
Hillarious
"I'm a hard core gamer with hand/eye co-ordination that would make your mind spin and I've still been in accidents." Yeah, everybody knows that twiddling your thumbs is exactly like doing something in the real world. Sounds like a bozo I met a while back who thought playing an X-Box motocross game was in some way like riding a motorcycle. Moron, that isn't "hand/eye co-ordination." That's twitch reaction. When you can play a real guitar, not Guitar Hero, we'll talk about your hand-to-eye coordination. Being a "hard core gamer" is at least as macho as being a tough guy hairdresser.
Sure it does
"Your point avoids the core question. Its not the percentage of people using the various devices. That's like saying that watching TV while driving becomes safer if only 5% of the drivers do it."
Your logic is grossly flawed. If 95% of the driving public are drunk, the roads are far more dangerous than if 5% are drunk. Cell phone users are drunks.
Cell phone companies' bread
Cell phone companies' bread and butter is the cell coverage along major highways and thorofares. Turning off, disabling, or otherwise interfering with the function of the device impacts revenues (and tax revenues derived from each account holder). Government interference with private industry revenue is a sure way to drive out that industry and their tax revenues along with it.
Also, there is no way to know if the person texting/talking/GPSing/web surfing is a driver or a passenger through triangulation or other means. Assuming you could measure it, how fast is too fast? Is there any data on how many accidents happened at 75mph vs 5mph?
Nevertheless, I think mandating hands-free made things worse. People think it's safer and are more readily engaged in cellphone use with a handsfree kit. At least with handheld use it was obvious to the driver that they were not 100% engaged in driving, and for what its worth, discouraged it. Handsfree marketing gives the perception that you can talk at will and still drive safely.
That 1000 people a year estimate is just that;
Verry conservative. Just this year, i've heard of a couple of train wrecks and a few bus crashes. Being a cab driver, i've seen people everyday making stupid, possibly deadly mistakes on the road with a cell in hand. This being just as dangerous as drunk driving, simply DON'T DO IT!
Cell phones and driving
Recently published studies show that when speaking on a phone the mind unconsciously "goes" to the other person's location. The speaker is no longer "here." We've all seen people speaking on cells oblivious to the world around them, the people around them, as they walk in public, do anything; they're are literally "somewhere else." We think we're "multi-taskers," but the brain can think of but one thing at a time--rote tasks by definition don't require thought. Hands-free or hand-held makes no difference, it's the conversation that's the problem. It is believed this phenomenum doesn't occur when speaking to passengers because they're "in the same place" as the driver. Cell users cannot help losing concentration if they use them. And as the highways in California show, laws prohibiting hand-held use are obeyed mainly in the breech (and hands-free is just as dangerous, though legal.) The best suggestion I've seen is to treat cell phone use while driving as severely as DUI in the event of an accident, with severe penalties. (While they're at it they could quadrupled or more the DUI penalties.)
Unconsciously
Zammer,
Where is this study you speak of? Do you have an url to it?
The mind does not "unconsciously" do anything except breathing and heart rates from the brainstem. All motor action is preceded by forethought, even though we do not think about it much with our frontal lobe. Humans do multitask all the time in everyway and only those who train themselves to concentrate on only one thing at a time are less of multitaskers. Driving is a multitasking operation. Conversations take attention and it is the level of attention to the conversation versus the level of attention to the driving that is important. Bad news will get your attention much more than meaningless talk with someone you know well.
The part about GPS and cell phone towers tracking movement is interesting, because they can also track embedded devices such as heart monitors, etc... Direct access to the brain function is now possible and it is not true that a person is "transported" to another location when talking on the phone, unless they are deliberately imagining that as they talk. Are you always transported to another time in your life when you listen to an old song? People have been listening to the radio with a great deal of attention for many years. There has to be another explanation for these numbers of accidents. A full inquiry into the effects and abilities of cell phone industry technology and infrastructure might uncover that. Automated driving is a train. Truck drivers are more careful because driving is their profession and livelihood.
http://femtobeam.com
The most distracting and
The most distracting and therefore hazardous things I do while driving are as follows:
1. looking at written directions.
2. Interacting with the GPS
3. 1/2 naked women within eye-view. (Fully naked women don't make the list at all, because I probably would not have lived through the first such encounter to tell about it).
Speaking on the ear-bud is not even on my top ten list. Having a sip of water is more distracting. Locating proper money for tolls is also more dangerous.
When I was a college student, I could roll a dube, drink a beer, & switch 8-track tapes--while driving a stick-shift (with manual steering) and I was still a better driver then 95% of everyone else.
As I earlier stated, the danger level increases with each and every action not having directly to do with driving. Of course speaking on the ear-bud is dangerous. So is a good fart.
The closest I have come to being killed was (in two different events) by police-cars. Once the officer pulled out in front of me on a 50-MPH highway. About 15 years later, about 3 seconds after my traffic light turned green, a pursuit vehicle shot across my right-of-way moving so fast that his siren noise did not arrive until after the police-car. (At least that those speeds, that was the perception). What do we do about that? Ban police cars?
Agree with TRM. It is much
Agree with TRM. It is much more distracting, and takes more "brain power" to carry on a phone conversation in a car than talk to someone riding along with you (who might be asleep, or reading, or talking now and then).
I've seen pedestrians talking on cell phones walk into a door! (Yup, I had to laugh... it was at athe post office). If it's distracting to a pedestrian who only hurt his foot, in a car, it is really, really dangerous.
As long as the politicians
As long as the politicians use cell phones while driving, you won't have them making any effort to stop cell phone use.
Several university research centers have studies on how cell phones make driving hazardous, studies that have been out for years. Some showed that there is no difference between the hand held and the hands free type phones. The problem was the brain used the same parts for listening and talking as it did for driving. And successful multi-tasking is a myth.
I testified in favor of a cell phone bill before the Maryland legislature several years ago. The chair of the committee made a big point of having every one shut off their cell phones - it might be a distraction to those at the meeting. Then they voted against the bill. Might distract drivers from talking when they should be driving?
Take the seatbelts and the airbags OUT of cars....
...and maybe people will pay a lot closer attention...when you're driving a 'safe' car, you get a false sense of security. If the only thing between you and disaster(and a painful, disfiguring death) is your quick response on the controls, I think you'd be more liable to be 'in the moment' when 'behind the wheel' so no one else ends up under YOURS....that, and if parents of kids like this went ahead and found the most cannibalistic ambulance chaser that money could buy, and went after the offending motorist...Klaatu marachas necktie
one good driver
tagged as:- solution
@Trollstein : "If I am driving and a passenger asks me a question, it is not uncommon that I ignore them until my 'CPU' settles." That's exactly the point : think about what you can do to become a better driver yourself and stop complaining and trying to enforce the driving of others. (in other words don't ask the nanny country to do something for you, but rather do something yourself). Assuming part of the load is the job of an adult. Will some drivers still make mistakes ? Make _them_ pay dearly, not everybody.
A point that I have not seen mentioned here : we cannot take the humans out of the equation, but public transportation is better than any "intelligent car" -- that is if it gets better :-) ... (to retake an argument above : to take 50% of the rides off the road is to reduce accidents by more than 50%)
Accidents?
Accidents? There are NO automotive "accidents", only collisions. I'm self employed and let my customers know that I do not use my phone when driving; after all, I can't do my job from a hospital or the morgue.