Slashdot Mirror

You should read a comparison of the cell phone driver and the drunk driver

Drivers using a cell phone exhibited a delay in their response to events in the driving scenario and were more likely to be involved in a traffic accident.
Drivers in the alcohol condition exhibited a more aggressive driving style, following closer to the vehicle immediately in front of them, necessitating braking with greater force.

and

Also noteworthy was the fact that the driving impairments associated with handheld and hands-free cell phone conversations were not significantly different.

Talking while driving is irresponsible, even if you are using hands-free. Removing physical buttons are not going to change that.
Turn off you phone before you start driving. If you are expecting an important call, be prepared to find a place to stop the vehicle when that call comes.
You may think that it isn't as bad as driving drunk, but it is.
(Yes, I am aware of the mythbusters episode regarding it, and yes the study above also came to the conclusion that talking while driving isn't equivalent to driving drunk, that doesn't invalidate the conclusion that cell phone users are more likely to be in accidents than drunk drivers.)

Those cool features described in the TFA, like the HUD display for test messages, twitter, iTunes, etc. leads to something politely called 'distracted driving' and less politely called 'Being an Asshole' which last year killed 3,328 people and injured 421,000. As a long-time biker, I often see the drivers working their smartphone whilst swerving through traffic and chatting up their passengers and I've damn near become one of the 421,000 (or the 3,328) more than once. Rather than provide fancy new 'heads up' displays for drivers or built-in smart phone driver docking stations for drivers with their 'heads up' their ass, we should be working on roadside electronic surveillance and longer prison sentences for the drivers who kill people while using their smartphone.

Hands-free sets don't help (or drinking from a travel mug while driving, for example, would have been banned long ago). The conversation with a party not in the vehicle is what is causing the problems. Note also that passenger conversations differ substantially from cell phone conversations, and prove far less distracting.

No. Passenger conversations differ substantially from cell phone conversations, and prove far less distracting.

I responded to you already, but here is some more:

Strayer DL, et al. "A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver," Human Factors (Summer 2006): Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 381–91. http://www.distraction.gov/dow...

Fitch, G. A., Soccolich, S. A., Guo, F., McClaffert y, J., Fang, Y., Olson, R. L., Perez, M. A., Hanowski, R. J., Hankey, J. M., & Dingus, T. A. (2013, April).
The impact of hand-held and hands-free cell phone use on driving performance and safety-critical event risk
(Report No. DOT HS 811 757). Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
http://www.distraction.gov/dow...

From the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety:
"Two epidemiological studies have linked talking on a cellphone directly to increased crash risk, using cellphone billing records to verify phone use of crash-involved drivers. A 2005 Institute study of drivers in Western Australia found that when drivers were talking on mobile phones there was a fourfold increased likelihood of a crash resulting in injury to the driver. 10 The findings were consistent with 1997 research that showed phone use among Canadian drivers was associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of a crash involving property damage but no injury."

Seriously, there have been hundreds of studies on this topic. If all you can find is one paper, LMGTFY

I responded to you already, but here is some more:

Strayer DL, et al. "A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver," Human Factors (Summer 2006): Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 381–91. http://www.distraction.gov/dow...

Fitch, G. A., Soccolich, S. A., Guo, F., McClaffert y, J., Fang, Y., Olson, R. L., Perez, M. A., Hanowski, R. J., Hankey, J. M., & Dingus, T. A. (2013, April).
The impact of hand-held and hands-free cell phone use on driving performance and safety-critical event risk
(Report No. DOT HS 811 757). Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
http://www.distraction.gov/dow...

From the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety:
"Two epidemiological studies have linked talking on a cellphone directly to increased crash risk, using cellphone billing records to verify phone use of crash-involved drivers. A 2005 Institute study of drivers in Western Australia found that when drivers were talking on mobile phones there was a fourfold increased likelihood of a crash resulting in injury to the driver. 10 The findings were consistent with 1997 research that showed phone use among Canadian drivers was associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of a crash involving property damage but no injury."

Seriously, there have been hundreds of studies on this topic. If all you can find is one paper, LMGTFY

Not at all. The driver simulation studies are designed to show that using a cell phone is more distracting that not using a cell phone, however, that's not a particularly useful result in the real world. The real question we want answered is whether normal cell phone usage patterns lead to a higher rate or severity of accidents. After all if you're not talking to someone on the cell phone, you could be talking to someone in the car, eating a sandwich, drinking a bottle of water, adjusting the radio, adjusting the air conditioning, reciting an entire Monty Python sketch to yourself, or lost in a fantasy. You can't compel people to pay attention with laws. The early evidence seems to suggest that distracted driving laws are not having any effect on accident rates.

Maybe cell phone use displaces other equally distracting behaviour?

Additionally, according to the U.S. Government the highest rate for distracted driving fatalities involving cell phones is 2.3% (21% of 11%) and that's for drivers aged 15-19. So it's a minority of a small minority of fatal accidents, the focus on cell phone use may be because the behaviour is more obvious, newer and thus easier to single out. This could be just another senseless moral panic.

http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/facts-and-statistics.html

distracted driving doesn't change just because you changed the delivery mechanism of the distraction.

I live in Kentucky (the good part), according to http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/state-laws.html we have the same laws on the books as georgia. I wonder if that mean that if I have to do something with my phone GPS I could get a ticket?

Just pull over then.

Seriously, is that so hard? Put your signal on, slow down, then rotate your steering wheel in the direction of whatever parking lot you're pulling into. Problem solved: You can play with your toys without breaking any laws, and other drivers and pedestrians don't have to worry about you being a danger to them.

According to that site, eating = impaired driving as well: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22931176

Also the first wiki link calls it distracted driving, which is different from impaired, so lets stick with that.

You can educate yourself on why you're a horrible driver at: http://www.distraction.gov/

From the CNN variation of TFA: "From a "At 0.01 BAC, drivers in simulators demonstrate attention problems and lane deviations. At 0.02, they exhibit drowsiness, and at 0.04, vigilance problems."

Ha! I witness these issues repeatedly on a daily basis from plenty of people with zero alcohol in their system (ok, I didn't test them, but I think we can safely assume >99% of drivers had not been drinking at 8-9am for example). Let's face it, some people just suck at driving, and that makes them quite dangerous already before you even factor in alcohol. I've even experienced some of these symptoms myself on occasion w/o drinking -- especially drowsiness.

I'm all for very low tolerance of drinking and driving, but I wish the media/politicians/etc. would stop making it out to be the only problem with driving, or that it is the biggest cause of accidents and/or deaths. On some "top N causes" lists it's even down at #5 or so. What usually tops alcohol is various forms of distractions (rubbernecking, eating, fiddling with radio, etc.), and what leads that list is usually cell phone usage. Studies have been done which shown that even talking on the phone is just as dangerous (albeit in slightly different ways) as being at the current legal BAC limit. So lowering legal BAC limits will actually make talking on the phone "even worse" than DWI.

For those who are screaming "citation needed!" in their heads right now, here's one of many I quickly googled up. Plenty more out there, just go look. And that is just talking on the phone...texting and/or surfing the web is even worse, and becoming more prevalent.

I think it's time to put more of this attention & funding against cell phone usage (not to say ignore alcohol, but share the spotlight so to speak). Better driver education & more so driver training (as in actual training, like car control & stuff) would also help overall safety considerably.

Most of the studies I have seen on it suggest that cell phone conversation is more distracting for two reasons. The one I see in all the studies is the person on the phone does not react to what is going on in the car. So they keep talking even if something dangerous is going where someone in the car will stop and not expect an answer if you are in a situation that requires more attention on your driving. The second one I have seen suggested, but not as often is that your brain requires more "processing power" to talk on a cell phone due to quality of voice and lack of body language. And yes you would think that looking at the person you are talking to would be more dangerous, but your brain and visual system is designed to take in a wide field with only glances to build on. Most accidents are not caused by a vision problem but an attention problem. See Inattentional Blindness. And here is another study on cell phone vs passenger conversation (Sorry PDF).

For crying out loud, the assumption where based on..nothing.

The estimate of 25% of all crashes -- or 1.4 million crashes -- caused by cell phone use was derived from NHTSA data showing 11% of drivers at any one time are using cell phones and from peer-reviewed research reporting cell phone use increases crash risk by four times. The estimate of an additional minimum 3% of crashes -- or 200,000 crashes -- caused by texting was derived by NHTSA data showing 1% of drivers at any one time are manipulating their device in ways that include texting and from research reporting texting increases crash risk by 8 times. Using the highest risk for texting reported by research of 23 times results in a maximum of 1 million crashes due to texting; still less than the 1.4 million crashes caused by other cell phone use.

it specifically says the study does NOT address whether a cell phone, or texting, was a contributing factor.

Well I'm pretty sure in all cases a cell phone is involved, since you can't text without one. I'm also sure that the most distracting part of the phone (that requires most to take their eyes off the road) is either dialing or texting. Since texting requires extended "dialing", I would assume that texting is more dangerous than talking on a cell phone. In fact the peer-reviewed NHTSA report says that texting increases the risk of crashing by 8 times.

More condemning evidence can be found at the NHTSA when you look only at fatalities:

* In 2008, there were a total of 34,017 fatal crashes in which 37,261 individuals were killed.

* In 2008, 5,870 people were killed in crashes involving driver distraction (16% of total fatalities).

* The proportion of drivers reportedly distracted at the time of the fatal crashes has increased from 8 percent in 2004 to 11 percent in 2008.

* The under-20 age group had the highest proportion of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes (16%). The age group with the next greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the 20- to-29-year-old age group (12%).

* Motorcyclists and drivers of light trucks had the greatest percentage of total drivers reported as distracted at the time of the fatal crashes (12%).

* An estimated 21 percent of 1,630,000 injury crashes were reported to have involved distracted driving.

This is all can be found here.