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Cellphone Drivers Drive Like Drunks
TDavid writes "A University of Utah study claims that drivers who use a cell phone will be 'more impaired than drunken drivers with blood alcohol levels exceeding 0.08.' The study also says that use will turn a driver who is age 20 into age 70. Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation.' What about in vehicle systems like OnStar?"
Indeed. And /. editors spell like dumb.
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
If it is a proven scientific fact that old people drive like they are drunk, why are they allowd to drive?
adventure-today.com
Then what is the difference between talking to someone in your car, and talking to someone on a hands free headset.
--sig fault--
I was hoping the effects would cancel each other out, two wrongs don't make a right?
Also in the news today: Slashdot Editors Post Stories Like Drunk.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
That should read:
"Cellphone Drivers Drive Like Women."
I better stop driving with passengers!
Let's be fair here, cell phones turn SOME drivers into worse-than-drunk drivers. ANYONE with a .08 BAC is going to drive poorly, only some folks who talk on a cell phone while they drive will drive poorly.
I'm going to be preemptive here, the solution lies in education, training and responsibility, not prohibition.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
I know where I am at one of the things they have attributed to traffic increase is people on their phones. They drive slower so there is more conjestion.
Evolution or ID?
I bought a hands free system so I could talk on the cell phone in the car and IT DIDN'T WORK. As soon as I turned it on and let go of the steering wheel, the car drifted off the road and hit a Big Boy statue. What a rip off.
Unknown host pong.
OnStar is nothing like a cell phone. If you're using OnStar, you have most likely already crashed. It's a system for helping you when you're in trouble, not a cell phone with speaker phone enabled. Slightly useful service :)
-b0lt
got sig?
Click here to order the ideal telephone for the "drunk talker" driver.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Mothers aren't allowed to drive with children in the car?
Partitions between the driver's and passenger's side seats so that I don't distract myself by talking to the person in the car next to me?
Ban the car stereo?
Wouldn't it all be so much safer if we were all kept in our homes so that our annoying presences won't cause unhappy things in the lives of all those other, perfect people out there?
Breakfast served all day!
The study focused on cell phones but really anything that distracts you from the road will most likely have the same results. ie eating and driving, changing cds, kids in the back etc..
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
Driving while talking on the cell I almost ran a red light.....
I'm usually a very good driver. On the cell phone though.... Ok... From now on, no more talking and driving.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Then, by that logic, if you're 70 do you drive like you're 120?
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
When people are driving with cellphones, rather than realizing how hindered their attention is, they just continue on thinking their fine, because hey, they're not drunk!
And yes, I realize this is not the exact thought process, but my point was that for the vast majority of people, they do not see in-car cellphone use as a huge risk compared to say...drinking while driving. And good luck convincing people otherwise. People aren't going to like being told that they cannot talk to other people while driving. Thank god for cordless headsets and speakerphone.
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I am thrilled to see scientific data regarding this. In order to affect change in law, studies and data like this are required. The more studies that come out to support the position that cel phone use while driving is dangerous, the better!
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three left turns do.
Isn't turning your typical 20 year old driver into a 70 year old driver actually an improvement?
Saying old people drive like drunkards...
Wow, they must be like 120!
Nokia and Apple team up to create the iFlask. For all your driving impairment needs.
Duh?
I would think it's common sense that anything that detracts from your concentration on the task of driving would decrease your quality of driving.
Clicky.
The folks at El Reg had a question:
"Which means that a 70-year-old yakking away on his cellphone has the reaction times of a 120-year-old, or have we misunderstood this rather poor analogy?"
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Isn't that just a cellphone that only dials one number (911) and charges $19 a call?
drunk cellphone-using drivers having a blowjob at the same time. I always avoid those.
Table-ized A.I.
If talking on a cellphone while using a headset is so detrimental to driving safety, is it also a problem to be talking to someone in the passenger seat?
... how people can say that handsfree systems don't help. If it's just having a conversation that impairs your driving, are we supposed to not speak with fellow passengers either? Maybe we should make it a law to have soundproof opaque padding between all vehicle compartments.
You're responsible for everything you do behind the wheel. We can't just outlaw everything that could possibly be a distraction while driving. If you smash into someone because you were talking on a cell phone, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE and will be punished accordingly. If you smash into someone because you were eating a burrito, it's the same thing. Can't outlaw burritos (yet).
My point is, reckless driving is an arrestable and punishable offense. If cell phone use is causing someone to drive recklessly, they should and will be punished, whether it's due to cell phone use or anythign else. This war against cell phones is just useless and silly.
I'm not sure about more impaired now than drunks. Are you impaired..yes. Do you have the ability to become unimpaired if you want to unlike when your drunk or high...yes.
More people die from drunk driving in a year than all of those that died in vietnam.
So until I start hearing cell phones cause as many or more deaths/mangled bodies than drunk driving(which it is estimated more than 50% of fatal car accidents involve alcohol), I wouldn't start comparing the two....
SEE WHY?!
I wonder what the reaction time would be of an 80-year-old drunk driver talking on a cell phone...
I'm interested to know if certain drivers are unaffected by this. I often drive while making calls, especially if traffic is slow and road conditions are good. I ignore the phone, not the road... I'm often saying 'say that again' because I was concentrating on some moron cutting infront of me as opposed to the phone call. I think its safe to say a lot of cell phone users ignore the road, not the phone. I believe I am an exception..even though I'll probably be called a flamer or be told one can't ignore sound coming from a device. But just my $0.02.
No, this is
First off, I love the word "likely" which means that they really don't know.
Actually, it's very possible that they are using the word "likely" to refer to the probabilistic nature of the data they have. You can't say that everytime you are involved in a conversation there is a 100% chance that that you will be a poorer driver. "Likely" refers to "likelihood".
GMD
watch this
The pope died peacefully in his sleep about 6 minutes ago. It is a sad day for all christians everywhere. May god rest his soul.
If police would do their jobs instead of sitting on their asses at speed traps, we wouldn't need cell phone laws, or studies like this.
Inevitably, anyone on a cell phone is breaking about 15 other driving laws because they can't concentrate. The drunkenness or cell-phone conversation is not the problem -- the swerving and going 20 miles an hour under the speed limit in the passing lane is. Pull them over for those things, and the idiot cell phone holding driver would quickly become a thing of the past.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
"A University of Utah study claims that drivers who use a cell phone will be 'more impaired than drunken drivers with blood alcohol levels exceeding 0.08.' The study also says that use will turn a driver who is age 20 into age 70."
:-P
So by use of some faulty logic here, this would mean that everyone who is age 70 drives like they are drunk?
SIGFAULT
"What about in vehicle systems like OnStar?"
Thought I'd answer this question:
"Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation.'"
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Ok.. the question I have for this is the same question I have every time they do this *same* type of study and produce the *same* type of results.. If the conversation itself is what impairs the driver, wouldn't that apply when the driver is having a conversation with a passenger? Certainly they're not suggesting that people who are driving shouldn't be allowed to talk? The only counterargument I can think of is that having a passenger could provide a benefit to the driver that would offset the penalty of conversation, perhaps by spotting things the driver might have missed. This assumes the the passenger can or would assist the driver- kids, the elderly, and the unobservant wouldn't count.
Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation.
======
What does the study say about talking to your buddy in the passenger seat? Come on.
Things are probably even worse for the idiots driving home drunk while chatting away on their cells after the bars close. I wonder what type of cumulative there would be.
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
Looks like a safe place to point out that "retirees" really shouldn't be driving. - RED HERRING anyone?
Problem is: we (the people) won't accept driving without a cell phoneas the only option, and it simply fuels the fire for people who, for reasons not limited to but including old age (sight, height, reflexes, etc...), wish to continue operating motor vehicles to continue to do so.
I'm not trying to be a biggot or a pensioner -basher, just pointing out how this type of drivel can really backfire for the wrong reasons.
..that the use of cell phones while driving should not be outlawed. From TFA:
...elderly drivers using a cell phone aren't any more of a hazard to themselves and others than young drivers... more experience and a tendency to take fewer risks helped negate any additional danger.
when 18- to-25-year-olds were placed in a driving simulator and talked on a cellular phone, they reacted to brake lights from a car in front of them as slowly as 65- to 74-year-olds who were not using a cell phone.
If these elderly people are allowed to drive with these reaction times, then young people using cell phones should be allowed to drive if they have equal reaction times. Also from TFA:
So elderly drivers should be allowed to use cell phones as well.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
Conversations in cars will be completely outlawed. No chatting on the phone. No getting directions from your passenger. If your kid needs to use the bathroom, you'll have to pull over so that it can ask you stop.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
I am posting this now via Nokia 3650 left handed maintaing 80mph in a 40 zone, no problems.
" Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation.' What about in vehicle systems like OnStar?"
Well, since OnStar is a handsfree system, do the math: it would be the same thing.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Speculating, as is my habit to do on topics I know nothing about, I would think one possibility for such results would be the cell phone user/driver gets lost in the virtualness of the experience (i.e. picturing in one's mind the person you are speaking to) and thereby allows their attention to wander away from the reality of the road.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
So is it that cell phones are too dangerous, or that .08 is too low a blood alcohol level to justify criminal charges?
From the National Motorist Association:
I'll drink to that
I have always maintained that handsfree doesn't do squat... it's the split mental attention and not having both hands on the wheel.
Try this easy test... during the superbowl, call someone up on your phone (with headset or without, doesn't matter). During the conversation, after every play, write down the number of yards gained/lost and the number on the jersey of the player that gained/lost them. You'll probably experience "slave can't serve two masters" syndrome and have to dedicate more attention to one or the other, either by having to say "hold on" or "um, what was that?" to whoever you are talking to or missing play stats to keep up with the conversation. Unfortunately, priority in a car most often goes to the conversation.
I'm horribly confused about why humans are adversely affected by talking on a hands-free cell phone, but talking to other passengers in a conversation is completely benign.
Maybe it's the tiny, tiny little buttons?
I dunno, but I find it simply fascinating....
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
They have no skills for paraphrasing. If the blurb was true I'd never drink alcohol again for fear of instant wrinkled skin, white hair, and random cancer.
This is exactly the kind of thing statistics SHOULDN'T be used for. It's math gone wrong.
Garbage studies like these come about because people trust conslusions for data like this without exploring it themselves. If you pretend that the number of motorcycles on the road is the same as cars on the road, motorcycles automagically become statistically safer.
This is exactly what was done in this study. The number of people who drive drunk regularly is far far lower than the number of people that talk on their phone while driving, and the results are skewed by it.
End activist abuse of statistics!
Second off, we should create only single passenger cars as talking to other people in the vehicle requires you to be actively involved in conversation
I think there is a difference here. When someone is in the car with you, they are sharing the same driving experience with you. This means when a situation comes up that requires your full attention (a busy intersection or a car pulling out in front of you for instance), they'll pause the conversation just as you do, to allow you to concentrate on the situation. However someone on the other end of a phone doesn't have a clue what is going on so they will just keep jabbering away, stealing some of your concentration. Whether you like it or not, this is very distracting.
posting on slashdot forums from your phone while (swerve) driving.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I drive drunk while talking on a cell phone. That probably makes me the equivalent of a blind, amputated 3 toed sloth behind the wheel. Which is IMHO above average for Southern California.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
with a passenger? I have a hard time grasping that it takes more concentration because somebody is conversing via a hands-free phone. Perhaps we should outlaw talking while driving?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I find that there are enough similarities to using a radio and a cell phone while driving that there should be a significant basis for removing radios from police cars.
Whoever it is trying to get people to stop using cell phones while driving had better give it up before it gets too messy. Convenience is far more important than saving lives. It is a practicing fact.
When you talk with a live person in the car, you're getting a lot more input from your senses. Our minds (and probably brains and other organs) are evolved to interact with a live person, while doing other things simultaneously (cooperative work). Talking on the phone is an abstract activity, and further occupies many of the higher functions, like imagination, that driving also requires. So it's easier to concentrate on driving, while also talking to a live person, than while talking on the phone.
;). Then we can get some real insights into this problem that daily threatens lives and wellbeing on our roads.
BUT, even talking to a live in-car person in the car is more distracting than driving alone. Driving isn't that hard 99% of the time, but the very hard 1% is usually totally unpredictable. Even while distracted by the passenger, we can usually drive well enough. So we need to get some real data on the driving ability alone, with a person, on a handsfree, holding a phone, and while drunk (and maybe while 70 years old
--
make install -not war
It depends on who you are talking to... literally...
So if I'm 62 does driving with a cellular phone make me like age dead?
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
Another passenger in the car is another pair of eyes, and will stop talking when the traffic situation gets complicated. The technology that would allow a cell-phone conversationalist to do the same isn't available yet, due to insufficient bandwidth. ;-)
Sustainability and energy independence essay
/. authors drunk like type.
I could only type with one hand ( I'm driving right now and don't have a hands-free kit yet).
Right On!
It irks me to no end that these studies never take into account the basic driving skills of the people they are testing.
I have had a CB in my car since I was a kid. In fact, the CB is MORE distracting, as you need to "press to talk", whereas you just babble into a cell phone.
The real problem is that most drivers have marginal skills. Add ANY kind of distraction, and you have a problem. Cell phone users are just easy to spot (look, the driver has his head canted).
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
ban CB radios from all delivery vehicles and Police cars
Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but this is Slashdot, home to many a geek. So I feel compelled to point this out.
CB radio is a very specific thing, comprised of 40 channels in the 26-27 MHz range. CB's common with truckers. Some police cars may have CB, but, say, police dispatch, is not on CB.
People tend to use "CB radio" to refer to any sort of 2-way radio, when 95% of the time it's incorrect.
It'd be like calling any data flowing over a wire "10BaseT." We know what you mean, but you might actually be referring to a fiber-optic ATM line.
"2-way radio" is the general method of referring to what you used "CB" for.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
What does anyone in the state of Utah know about drinking?
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
If it is a proven scientific fact that old people drive like they are drunk, why are they allowd to drive?
... a joke, I think, but that's how much driving meant to him.
Because they control the government: police, courts, armed forces, etc.
Because they run the economy -- banks, corporate boards, regulations. (Alan Greenspan is no spring chicken.)
Because they can -- or think they can -- continue to drive forever, and they don't want to stop.
I remember one old guy who'd been in an accident, mainly because his driving skills had eroded badly. When challenged, he stated that he would give it up when he killed somebody
-kgj
-kgj
The problem with a cellphone conversation which makes it different from an in-car conversation is that the conversant is not 1) aware that you're in a car, and 2) cannot tell when you need to shut up and drive. We need to develop different phone habits, so that 1) if you're using a cell in a car, you tell people, and 2) if you need the other person to shut up, there is a polite mechanism for making them do so. Obviously, saying "shut up, I'm in an intersection" is not currently polite, but it can become so.
There are precedents in this. The various telephone companies had to teach people what to do when they picked up a phone. It wasn't considered normal to start a telephone conversation with "hello".
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
It's a small matter, but a crucial one: it requires far less attention to communicate with someone who is physically present than with someone who's a disconnected voice on the other end of a telephone line.
Shall I assume that you have reasonably unbiased and scientifically valid data to back your assertion?
I can just as easily state the opposite: "Communicating with a voice on the phone requires far less attention than speaking with someone in the vehicle because the driver will not feel the need to turn my head to look at the person on the phone." I just made that up, but it sounds reasonable; I have no data to back or refute the assertion.
For example, if a truck suddenly pulls out in front of you, you will suddenly focus on it; your passenger will tend to notice this and stop talking. Someone on the other end of a phone won't.
Your scenario assumes the driver and passenger(s) will see the same things at the same time, which is not a given: what if the passenger is reading or just has his eyes shut?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
The OnStar system, if you pay the monthly fees, can be used to make advanced reservations at restaurants, buy movie tickets, theatre tickets, airplane tickets and a host of other usefull features, all while you are NOT in any clear and present danger.
OnStar, it's more then what the commercials tell you... (What a slogan!)
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
So if a cell phone makes a 20 year old person drive like they are 70 years old, then having a .08 BAC and talking on the cell phone would put you up around 120 years old? C'mon people. Where do these goof balls come up with this stuff. .08 BAC, some drive just fine with a .24 BAC, they just drive right into others.....
SOME people drive just fine with a
I guess MACP is next, Mothers Against Cell Phones, and the CA classes should be starting soon ( Cellphone Anonymous)
#include bier;
NEWSFLASH :: New Study Proves Most New Studies Unnecessary!
This
What if the old people were drunk and using a cellphone?!? Then they'd be a real menace!
Beware the drunken cellphone-using old folks!
Humans are not capable of operating motor vehicles. At least 80% of accidents are caused by people who are not impaired in any way, shape, or form. Automobiles are inherently unsafe because humans are not capable of operating them properly. What's a little more risk? The alternative is to not drive and to bike or walk, but then you're at even more risk by being annihilated by one of these poorly engineered devices.
0.08 = 8 procent .5 promille = legal limit in Belgium if I recall correctly
:)
0.0005 =
8 procent is quite sufficient to kill a person, so I guess they mean cell phone drivers drive worse than dead people
- Online Concierge: Find recommendations for entertainment, dining, and shopping in 52 major cities worldwide.
- Driving Directions: When you're in an unfamiliar area, get help finding your way while you stay safely in your vehicle.
- Information & Convenience Services: If you need to find the nearest place to get cash or the right restaurant for a business lunch, just push the blue OnStar button. An OnStar Advisor with access to over 7 million business listings.
- Hands-Free Voice-Activated Calling: Most OnStar-equipped vehicles include a fully integrated, hands-free wireless phone that is voice-activated so you can drive with your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.
None of these require the vehicle to be crashed before using. In fact, most would be utterly useless if the vehicle is inoperable.Oh, and OnStar is exactly like a cellphone. See #4 above. You subscribe with Verizon Wireless for X number of minutes. This sounds dangerously similar to my cellphone. It is exactly like "a cell phone with speaker phone enabled", but you say it is not.
I sound like a motherfucking OnStar commercial. Really, I don't care about OnStar. Just wanted to make you look like a moron.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
"This supports the suggestion by Storie (1977) that men are more at risk from accidents involving high speed while women are at more likely to be involved in accidents resulting from perceptual judgement errors."
Social Research Centre Study
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
somebody should make a flask shaped like a cellphone
love is just extroverted narcissism
The real problem is that most drivers have marginal skills.
Actually, nearly all people have better than average driving skills. That apparently includes you.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
It's not a troll - it's true!
And what? I don't see the point here. The elderly can still drive.
I bet you haven't lived in florida have you. You don't see the stories on teh news when some older person mistakes drive for reverse and the gas for the brake. Or when the run a stop sign right in front of you and swear up and down that they had the right of way. Remeber the old guy who plowed through a market killing quite a few people. This happens quite often
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Oh no! Now cell phones have been shown to cause increased blood alchcol levels as well as brain rot!
The study also says that use will turn a driver who is age 20 into age 70.
So if I want to grow older I should use a cell phone?
Maybe they should rephrase this.... :)
I talk on the cell phone while driving all the time. I take care in my driving, and if something happens that needs my attention, I ignore the person on the other end of the line. It's just like tuning out music when driving needs your attention.
Just because you are incapable of multi-tasking doesn't mean that I am as well. If I have an accident while driving, give me a ticket for that, not for using my phone.
Make analogies to drunk driving all you want. Such arguments are falacies of false analogy. Alcohol physically impairs you. You can't just snap out of it. While talking on my cell, I can easily just drop my phone, and then the "impairment" is gone.
Stop trying to legislate what I do that might lead to something "wrong." Legislate against bad things, not things that could lead to bad things.
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
Each driver demonstrates differing levels of proficency -- some can function talking on the phone while using their GPS while others can't chew gum at the same time. Why enforce a lowest-common denominator across all drivers? There should be tighter skill tests as there are already too many people who shouldn't be driving at all anyway.
Let it be a meritocracy -- if you can do something, then prove you can and receive an endorsement for it.
I use inline skates and go all over town (we live in a city of about 40k people): it has not been uncommon to be almost hit by drivers talking on cell phones (and it is someone talking on a cellphone 99% of the time). This has caused several close calls. One lady even brushed my leg with her automobile until I tapped the glass with my finger and I pointed at her. She was so scared she dropped her phone. She was making a right turn and was more interested in her phone conversation then me being there! At least when there is a conversation in the car with a person being there -- the other person is a second pair of eyes warning of pedestrians.
-Ron
As far as I'm concerned, the elderly can still drive only because we consider driving to be a pseudo-right since the pursuit of happiness apparently depends on it much of the time. One cannot help being elderly yet, the elderly still have the right to pursue happiness, and driving is (assume for the moment) necessary to pursue happiness. Ergo, the elderly must be allowed to drive even though they put themselves & others at undue risk.
Driving whilst participating in a casual cell phone conversation is not, however, necessary to pursue happiness, and thus should be regulated. The simple semantic attack on this: "Cell phone users should be allowed to pursue happiness" is invalid, because the cell phone use necessary to pursue happiness can easily be done at times when one is not driving.
Note that I tolerate this line of argument, but don't accept it completely. AFAIC, it would be a good idea to get the bad drivers in general off the streets. However, in order to not infringe on the general right to pursue happiness, this would necessitate substantial spending on public transportation, which is not going to happen any time soon.
Your final comment about the "triple whammy threat" is kind of ironic, because the research being discussed DISCREDITS it. I take the conclusion to mean something like "the reaction time penalty, which is a function of amount of reduced sensory awareness, saturates at level X" and has nothing to do with being older/younger.
I'm open to arguments that the elderly are not impaired drivers, but I doubt you'll find any support. Finally, note that I'm not concerned about the elderly, so much as I am about poor drivers in general. By no means do I mean to imply that it would be a good idea to force people off the road at age 50-whatever or 60-whatever. I mean only that everyone should be subject to rigorous competency checks.
I can understand typing in the phone number, looking for a contact, etc is distracting (imho no more distracting then changing the channel on the radio).
But how is talking on the phone anymore distracting then say - talking to the person in the passanger seat? Or turning around and beating your 8 year old brat for being annoying?
I think a large problem is the cell phone users who do not know how to use their phone and are typing away at the numbers concentrating on that instead of driving. Again, not all cell phone users fall in this category (i can use my cellphone blind)...
Another thing, since nobody likes to accept blame - those who were on cell-phones said "it was because of the phone" ---in reality, it is because you are an idiot and do not know how to type at a keyboard without looking at it.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
on a cell phone?
"Dude, I'm calling on my way home. I'm soooooo wasted!"
People drive like shit. You probably drive like shit. All you social engineers need to shut the fuck up and find a new hobby besides whining about cell phones.
Maybe if cellphone quality improved, people wouldn't have to concentrate so hard on listening to the person on the other end of the line.
It seems that these guys have repeated the research of a british study from March 22 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1885775.stm/
Talking on a mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than being over the legal alcohol limit, according to research.
Tests by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory said drivers on mobiles had slower reaction times and stopping times than those under the influence of alcohol.
And it said hands-free kits were almost as dangerous as hand-held phones.
Using a hand-held mobile while driving is illegal in more than 30 countries, but in the UK drivers are usually prosecuted for dangerous or careless driving.
Roger Vincent of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents called for a specific offence of using a mobile while driving for the UK - even with a hands-free kit.
"The problem is you actually get sucked into the telephone conversation, and the conversation starts to take precedence over the driving task," he told BBC News.
"The person on the end of the phone doesn't know the driving conditions around you. If someone's in the car talking to you they can stop talking if a dangerous situation arises.
"People just don't seem to understand how distracting these telephone conversations are."
The research said reaction times were, on average, 30% slower when talking on a mobile than when just over the legal limit, and nearly 50% slower than when driving normally.
Drivers were also less able to maintain a constant speed and found it more difficult to keep a safe distance from the car in front.
In the tests at 70 miles per hour, the braking distance was 102ft (31m), which increased to 115ft (35m) with alcohol; 128ft (39m) with a hands-free phone and 148ft (45m) with a hand-held mobile.
The study, which was sponsored by insurer Direct Line, involved a panel of 20 volunteers using a driving simulator.
Janet Anderson, MP for Rosendale and Darwen, is currently trying to push a bill through which would ban the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving.
The second reading is expected to take place on 12 April.
Welcoming the report's findings, Ms Anderson said: "We must all recognise that driving and using mobile phones can kill. It takes less than a split second for a lapse in concentration to result in an accident.
"It must therefore be made crystal clear to drivers who insist on behaving in this way that they endanger the safety of the public generally, and their own safety too. "
A cell phone user, noticing a hazard ahead, can hang up and become effectively sober immediately. A drunk stays impared for hours...
Not that this happens in practice much (either noticing *or* hanging up), but in theory...
I had a talk with a friend of mine of how people have a hard time already keeping up with simple day to day tasks, such as, as this article points out, using their cell phones responsively, and then how these same people would complain about their rights being invaded or their choices limited.
will impare your performance. Period. Typically you are trying to split your attention between whatever you are doing and the conversation on the phone.
Perfect example: I play online FPS while my girlfriend is yapping about what happened to her that day (you know how it is, so and so said this, so and so said that, blah blah dresses blah blah magazines blah blah how do you feel blah blah you never listen to me blah blah blah) and I notice that my scores experience a significant drop and I begin to play like a n00B!!1!!! Why? because while I'm trying to kill terrorists and rescue hostages, I have to simultaneously pretend like I'm actually concerned with what she has to say.
While I do find that the usual "yes, yes, really? no way! for real? well, I dont know what to tell you" combination works well, it is still distracting.
Second off, we should create only single passenger cars as talking to other people in the vehicle requires you to be actively involved in conversation and we should ban CB radios from all delivery vehicles and Police cars. Should this move on to airplanes as well?
;-), but I do think we should be aware of the attendant risks.
Don't get carried away. The data indicates that cell phone use impairs your driving skills. That's all it indicates. Maybe talking on a CB does too, but there's no data, nor does anyone really care-- CB use is much less common than cell use.
And what? I don't see the point here. The elderly can still drive.
Insurance figures would seem to indicate they're much less likely to engage in dangerous driving in the first place. If a 20-something is already pre-disposed to dangerous driving, *and* they drive and talk, then it can be safely argued they're much more dangerous than a 70-year-old on the road. Maybe the point is moot-- it's already well-established that 20-something drivers are more dangerous than 70-somethings, without a cell in hand.
Ahhhh yes, this affects your children!
This affects everybody that uses the roads. I can think of very few deaths more pointless than a traffic fatality, despite the fact that they happen all the time. I don't necessarily think we should outlaw driving and talking (except maybe for those SUV-driving soccer moms who simultaneously fix their makeup *and* talk *and* sip their lattes
If we were to take your point of view to its logical conclusion, we would legalize drinking and driving, to hell with the data.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Just imagine....someone calling OnStar to get them to unlock the car door when they are driving.
Or calling them to flurt with the operator or to order a pizza and have them deliver it to the GPS coordinates that the system says.
This just in... doing anything besides driving, while driving, causes bad driving. If we ban the use of cell phones while driving, we also have to ban radios and cd players, eating or drinking, and talking to other people in the car.
Not to start an argument on statistical data, but in this context, likely means that although there is a statistically significant difference in driving ability (measured as time to onset of braking when the car in front of you brakes), there is the chance that a particular individual will not be impaired (small), or that a particular trial will show no impairment.
Looking at the article in Human Factors in 2003 by Strayer and Drews, the effect size is high enough to make me take this seriously.
There is the problem that you mention--that someone in the passenger seat might cause just as much trouble, but frankly, THERE ISN't MUCH YOU CAN DO ABOUT THAT!
I understand your skepticism--it's a good and healthy approach to new research, but unless you take the time to actually read the source article, then you are doing yourself a disservice. News sources such as ABC are always looking for a way to get people interested, and talking about children will get viewers and hits on their site. I doubt that this is the primary motivation for the research, however.
Although I am not at University of Utah, there is a driving simulator in the psych department here at Clemson, and I have played with it a bit. Most of the people that regularly use it for research have a single concern--saving lives by figuring out what makes people unsafe drivers.
The impairment level involved in using a cell phone is important. It was once thought that it was only due to using your hands, but now it's becoming evident that it is the continual conversation.
The interesting study would be to compare the effects of a passenger, but thinking about it, I would guess that a passenger wouldn't be as bad as a cell phone, because they can see the road and driving conditions, and shut up when necessary, or even tell the driver to pay attention to the road.
Last comment--an interesting component of the one study looked at the effect of traffic density, and found that traffic density alone did NOT impair driving ability, but when combined with cell phone usage, there was a different effect than without. (The study does not provide enough data to know exactly what that effect was). This means that driving with a cell phone is MORE dangerous than driving in high-density traffic.
HAND
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
I have been driving for over 30 years. Accident free for the past 27. Ticket free for the past 25.
I have driven professionally, including tractor-trailers.
So yes, I DO have better than average driving skills, thank-you.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
i don't get it, why do people have such problems talking on cellphones while driving a car? and cars only have four wheels!!!
i used to drive an 18 wheeler from coast to coast in the lower 48 states for years and talked on CB & amature radios and cellphones too yet never had a wreck...
people can talk to other passengers in their cars and not be distracted from their driving, but put a cellphone in the mix and lookout!!!
I don't grasp what you are trying to say. Do you mean that the average driver has better than average driving skills? Saying more than half is plausible, but nearly all is false.
Where I live, people aren't very good at driving under these conditions here. The conditions suck, because there's always some sort of roadworks happening, and the paint on the roadway is faded, or they didnt' bother removing old lines after they put in new ones (especially the town right next to me, which is primarily upper-class people). These situations make it harder to drive: around here, you should NOT use a cell phone while driving. People, even experienced drivers, do unexpected things, and its very dangerous.
2) Everyone is different. Some people are better drivers even when drunk or distracted than many of the idiots on the road are at the best of times. I think if you want to drive while talking on your cell, say, you should be able to take a special driving test that demonstrates you have the talent to do so safely, and get a special license that says so.
"the study also says that use will turn a driver who is age 20 into age 70." I guess that will make all the young drivers stop speeding and drive 20 mph under the speed limit. Anything to slow down young drivers warrants a 'blue ribbon' study... ;)
It does not take a rocket scientist to know that this is a FACT.
So are they saying that by a driver being part of an active conversation, they are impaired? What about talking to a passenger?
I use my hands free set, but I generally don't like to talk on the phone and drive anyway, because I cannot concentrate on the conversation.
Just two days ago, I was halfway through the intersection at a green left turn arrow when some Crazy Asian Female (tm) ran her red light and almost broadsided me. As I saw her coming, she was yapping on her cell phone, driving one handed, and was looking off in some side direction - clearly not at the road.
Either require headsets to be used or be a geek and buy a Bluetooth phone and car :) I have a Bluetooth Blackberry 7100t that works great with my 2005 Acura TL. I just throw my bag in the trunk and drive off. Use the button on the steering wheel to activate voice commands and dial and listen over the car's speakers while the microphone in the ceiling picks up my voice. Works really well and is much safer than any other method of talking whiel driving.
This guy is way out there
Huh? Single occupant cars? No CBs? Conversations with passengers and on CBs are slightly different. If I'm driving and talking to someone in the passenger seat, and I need to concentrate on the road and pause, they know why I'm doing it and don't bug me. Talking on a CB is also slightly different, as the established etiquette is that people are probably doing something else, and pauses are not just accepted, but inherent to the format. Cell phones are entirely different, if you are talking on a cell phone, and need to concentrate on the road, the person on the other end has no idea, and is likely to pester you if you need to pause. Talking is not the problem, the format is the problem.
Sig is a crazy old German guy.
There are differences (described in other answers) which may make cell phones worse, but driving with passengers *is* more dangerous for younger drivers (see http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/safebasics/drivi ng_safety.html)
Then note that the study in the cell phone article was of younger drivers.
-Hil
CB use is much less common than cell use.
It wasn't in the 70's
That would be a good study. Look at the stats from before the CB craze to after the CB craze, and see if there is a spike in the accidents.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Did anyone have any doubt left that people on cellphones are a danger on the road? Haven't we all had at least 2 or 3 close calls with cellphone drivers by now?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
What happens when a 70 year-old talks on the cell while driving a car? Instant death?
As a drunk, I'd like to say that I resent being compared to cellphone drivers.
Strayer, D. L., & Johnston, W. A. (2001). Driven to distraction: Dual-task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular telophone. Psychological Science, 12(6), 462-466.
Strayer, D. L., Drews, F. A., & Johnston, W. A. (2003). Cell phone-induced failures of visual attention during simulated driving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9(1), 23-32.
These papers are generally accepted as showing that talking on a cell phone (hands-free or not) decreases driving ability, and that conversing with an occupant does not have nearly the same impact. I should note that I believe that there are major flaws in both studies.
G
All world class metropolitan cities have subways. They're just one of those things that world class metropolitan cities have. If not many US cities have subways, then there just aren't many world class metropolitan US cities.
Anyway, no surprise at all. I don't even like someone who's sitting in the passenger seat to talk to me if I'm going through a spot of rough traffic (but then I have ADD :)
I see cell-phone-drivers do the craziest shit every day.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I was making a joke. Most people, when asked to grade their own driving abilities, grade themselves as above average. Apparently, most people think that their own driving is great and it's just everybody else that's driving atrociously. Obviously, this isn't the case.
Judging by his post, the grandparent kind of fit into that whole crowd, even though he has just posted his own credentials which indicate that for what it's worth at the very least he seems to have a better than average driving record.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
A A R P
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Does this 0.08 "blood alcohol level" have any units?
speaking with a passanger or... singing with the radio.
But then studies find what you want them too don't they?
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
WTF? I'm hoping you don't mean that literally.
Celebrate the finer things in life
If you're in a situation where you can't talk and drive at the same time, don't make phone calls and don't answer the phone. Your phone has voicemail and caller ID for a reason.
You are not available 24/7. If someone can't understand this, this is their problem. If it's your job to be available 24/7, get a hands free device or something.
If you have a passenger, have them make phone calls if possible.
Avoid lane changes while on the phone (unless you have tons of room). Even if it means following that truck at 60mph for a minute or two.
If you suddenly need to pay full attention to driving, do so. Being impolite is better than totalling your car.
If you were in a traffic jam, but aren't anymore, it's OK to tell the person on the other end of the line and say you need to hang up.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
Think about it if most of the people were incapable of driving safely at 0.08% BAL then many people could not drive safely at 0.075% BAL.
You don't want to set the BAL to where most people start driving dangerously because too many people would be dangerous at a lower level. You should not drink and drive anyways.
Studies that compare driving ability to 0.08% BAL are poorly designed.
The studies show try to find how quantitatively how much more dangerous a driver the subject of the study is.
BTW Talking while driving also impairs your driving ability.
I don't know about you but when I use the phone in the car I kinda pay attention to the traffic first and foremost, the person on the other end blatantly doesn't get as much attention as for instance a person sitting next to me.
I would say someone on a phone is less likely to distract you than someone in the car. They won't point at people, they wont spill drinks on your seats, they wont need you to stop for the toilet and they wont keep saying "are we there yet?"
Are mums taking their kids to school drive like they are drunk?
Well sometimes, but are we really incapable of listening and responding while using our hands to turn and feet to brake?
I seem to remember doing a fair amount of listening and responding while driving doing my test!!
I completely agree with the study. A few years ago, my wife was driving home from work, it was around 12am, and took her usual route home.
There is a stop sign off a main road, She stopped, and suddenly was rear ended by a acura. The young woman got out, and actually said "Oh I'm so sorry, I was talking on my cell phone, and got distracted"
She hit my wife's car, going 60 Km/Hour. She didn't even try to hit the brakes.
It's been 3.5 years and she still has cronic back pain, and severe headaches. Being a soft tissue injury, she also got next to no settlement, (unlike what a broken bone would). Her MRI concluded that the fluid layer between one of her disc's, was punctured, but there wasn't proof that it was that way, BEFORE the accident.
Needless to say, I hate seeing people on Cell phones.
Yeah and all those extra seats in cars need to be outlawed. Passengers should not be allowed to distract a driver, while we are at it lets ban radios, eating, drinking and any other random thing that can be deemed distracting. I think this comes down to two main problems. One is that the cell phone in the hand is easy to see and then you have a reason to claim the other person is an idiot. Two, there is a bit of class warfare hidden in this cell phones are bad crap. One cell phones are the number one reason, or even hight than the radio or passengers, people get in to car accidents then we can consider banning them. Until then get off it.
As others in this discussion noted, talking on the phone is approximately as distracting as talking to someone in your back seat. If you're the kind of idiot that feels the need to turn your head to face that person in the back seat while you drive, you're also the kind of idiot that gets distracted with a cell phone. If you're the kind of person who can talk to the person in the back seat without turning your head, you can handle a cell phone conversation too.
Are there specific laws against eating while driving? No. Putting on makeup? No. Shaving? No. Those all get put under the omnibus "Don't violate traffic laws" concept. If you weave in and out of a lane while shaving, you'll get pulled over for weaving in and out of a lane. If you wind up speeding because you are eating a Chalupa from Taco Bell and the sauce spills on your pants, you'll get pulled over for speeding. In other words, there are already laws in place to handle dangerous driving -- regardless of the reason for that dangerous driving.
But because cell phones are relatively new technology, oooh, we'd better pass a new (and redundant) law against it (while at the same time ignoring everything else that distracts the driver to an equal or greater amount).
There should be a law against "Driving while Not Me", because everyone else on the road is a menace.
I would guess that they would be a bit worst.
So, there you are, in your car, with your spouse/girlfriend/evening hopeful. You've just enjoyed a movie, and are on your way to a nice dinner, and you're talking passionately about the best scenes in the movie.
You're talking and thinking about the movie. Do you drive like a drunk? Assuming that "hands free" improves nothing, should we pass laws forbidding conversation in cars?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
shit stinks. I mean hello?!? I can't imagine anyone driving around and not figuring this out. Some people you see on the phone can drive just fine. So can some drunks. The rest, they're the ones swerving and nearly hitting you, etc.
Truck driver on a CB radio.
Airplane pilot communicating with the tower (not to mention dealing with a cockpit full of switches and controls).
Train engineer on the phone with the station.
Bridge crew on a boat talking with each other and with other boats via radio.
Are these equally dangerous?
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
better than average driving record
An interesting distinction.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
And I thought my biggest worries might be getting brain cancer or running off the road.
So... pick up the cell phone while driving, start listening to easy listening oldies, leave the turn signal on for 10 miles, and look around for a farmers' market?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
And what? I don't see the point here. The elderly can still drive.
Clearly you've never been to Florida.
/Couldn't pay me to drive with my Grandfather
That's a beautiful term. I'm going to start using it. (I am aware you may not have invented it, but thanks for using it.)
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Cell phone users also act like drunks. They stand in public places, yell very loudly and think that their conversation about whether it's pizza or Chinese tonight is so important we must all hear it.
The only thing missing is public urination, but I'm sure that's an add-on service.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've certainly tried using a cellphone in the car and it's really aparrent to me that I'm not driving as well as I should. So my cellphone stays off in the car. I'm a big time supporter of banning hands-on cellphone use by the drivers of moving vehicles.
But these studies that show that hands-free devices are also unacceptably dangerous make me worry about having another person in the car with me? If I have an 'active conversation' with a passenger as I drive, am I at the same risk as with a hands-free cellphone?
I've never used a hands-free cellphone - but I certainly don't *feel* like my driving is suffering when I talk with a passenger as I drive.
So if that's an accurate observation - and a hands-free phone conversation is somehow worse than chatting with a passenger - then what makes the difference?
Is it that a passenger notices when driving conditions require more of my attention and stops talking? Is it something to do with the quality of the audio from the phone? What?
Seems like a study of *THAT* distinction would provide interesting data on the nature of the problem.
www.sjbaker.org
A rant...
.08, Strayer and colleague Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology, found during research conducted in 2003.
A rant... (mainly cause it seems like they keep re-publishing this identical article every 3 months, and it gets annoying)
"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, his reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver," said David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study. "It's like instant aging."
In fact, motorists who talk on cell phones are more impaired than drunk drivers with blood-alcohol levels exceeding
What this really says article says...
Is that Elderly are a helluva a lot more dangerous than drunk drivers and should really be taken off the road.
Secondly, there is much question as to the validity of the tests.
"The study found that drivers who talked on cell phones were 18 percent slower in braking and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked."
The first part is in deed a concern. The second is not. The 17% increase length to regain speed is most likely due to a cell phone user being extra cautious after such an ordeal and double-checking before they regain speed. This is NOT a bad thing.
Anyways, how much time are we talking here?
"The numbers....come down to milliseconds"
"The new research questions the effectiveness of cell phone usage laws in states such as New York and New Jersey, which only ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. It's not so much the handling of a phone, Strayer said, but the fact that having a conversation is a mental process that can drain concentration."
First off, we have to start admitting that not everyone can multi-task. We also need to see the statistics on an individual level. If 1/3 showed minimal impairment, and 1/3 showed no impairment, and 1/3 showed dramatic impairment. What is the breakdown?
I know plenty of drivers who are often 'distracted drivers'. Particularly when they have people in the car. How do these statistics compare to the same driver with a passenger? with four passengers? And I am sorry....a cell phone user is NOT more impaired than a drunk driver. It is political BS. I refuse to buy it and no statistic will prove it to me. Simply put...I see tons of people driving on the cell phones - and driving fine. Sometimes a momentary reaction issue...yes. But when I see a drunk driver they are all over 2 or three lanes. They nearly hit everyone. They often run off the road. Somehow it is hard for me to accept that I can see a 100+ cell phone users who are supposedly "more impaired" and they don't perform as poorly as drunk drivers.
So let's look at the truth instead of the non-stop media propaganda bullcrap.
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According to the American Automobile Association, wireless phones were not among the top five contributing factors in auto accidents. From the more than 32,000 accidents analyzed, wireless phones contributed to 1.5 percent of accidents, according to the AAA research published in May.
The most distracting was an outside object, person or event, which contributed to 29.4 percent of accidents analyzed. AAA also determined that cassette or CD players were more distracting than cell phones, resulting in 11.4 percent of accidents analyzed.
Distractions from another occupant in the vehicle, such as a chatty passenger or baby, contributed to 10.9 percent of accidents. Eating or drinking contributed to 1.7 percent, according to the AAA study.
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Well, 1.5% compared 11.4% for CD players. Sure seems like car CD players should be banned before cell phones does it not. Let's ban whiny babies from cars as well.
In truth, I spend much of my time driving on the cell phone. And drive much better than most of my local area residents. Furthermore, it has helped me remain awake and vibrant on long road trips.
In truth, I've been bitched out on a few
What he is saying is that when asked something like 90% of drivers (ok, I am making that number up but it is definitely >50%) will say that they are better than average drivers.
I think this is partly due to overconfidence on the part of many drivers as well as differing definitions of what makes one a good driver. A speed freak might say a good driver is one that can snake down the highway past all the turtles and not hit anyone, regardless of whether those other drivers have to hit their brake or whatever to avoid getting hit. A more concervative type might consider good driving to be always using one's turn signal (can you imagine?) and obeying the speed limit even if it means getting in the way of the speed freak. Skill vs care. You can't be a good driver without at least a little bit of each, but which is more important is probably debatable and situation dependent.
In India, driving while talking on mobile phones has been banned for a long time and this ban is enforced quite effectively.
With so much concern for road safety in the USA, its quite amazing that similar ban hasnt been enforced in USA.
I post, therefore I am
I disagree with that assertion. CB communications has evolved specifically for use while operating a vehicle. It's half-duplex, so you're not straining to listen while you talk. It's usually cranked up to a very high volume, so you're not straining to hear it. The speaker usually enunciates very loudly and clearly directly into the mic. There are standardized abbreviations, acknowledgments, etc. all designed to accommodate the distractions and miscues involved while you're doing something else. Long pauses before responses (while you're attending to road conditions) are not unexpected. There's no dialing numbers or fiddling with complex menus involved.
Anybody using a phone like a CB would be considered incredibly rude by the person on the other end, who often don't even know that you're driving. People talking on the phone are trying hard to emulate a face-to-face conversation. People talking on the CB are not.
This process takes approximately 50 years.
I read
Well, I have a Treo 650 and it's great because I can post on Slashdot while I drive and it's actually quite safe bec[NO CARRIER]
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
You might even say it's likely they are using it this way.
If cell phones turn 20 yr olds into 70 yr olds, shouldn't we also be concerned about 70 yr olds themselves driving???
Why do people assume these results imply driving while talking on a phone is dangerous? Perhaps it means that driving while moderately drunk is not as dangerous as people think.
Speaking of children, what about all the parents who are futzing with their screaming kids in the car? If I see one of those "Kids on Board" signs in a car I know to watch out for sudden swerves, braking, etc.
If it makes a 16 year old drive like a 66 year old, I'm all for it. Make it mandatory for teenagers to be on the phone at all times! The retirees are not the major traffic hazard here...
Our people drive like they're drunk all the time. Cell phone or no cell phone, entertainment center or none, alcohol, drugs, or coffee, people can be counted on to drive as if they were trying to watch the road through their colons. The only comfort is that at least Columbus drivers are not aggressive, just clueless/negligent/stupid.
(sarcasm)
Of course, why should people drive reasonably anywhere - I mean after all no one else but us really matters, right? My schedule, my time - these are the things that really matter. Other drivers - you're expendable. You can live or get out of my way.
(/sarcasm)
in lots of things, we've made the decision that other people are here to make us happy - why should driving (one of the more common and universal activities in the US) be any different?
Several months back I was involved in an accident where a woman was on a cell phone. I was stopped at a red light at a 3 lane intersection, I was the only car there. She came around a bend with about a 1/4 mile visiblity to the intersection, and hit me full out doing around 60-70kph. The rearender threw my car across the intersection, I was lucky not to hit anyone else or be hit.
I walked out of the car, but had some bad back issues later (and still to some extent to this day). She was busy dialing her cell phone, one hand and both eyes were completely off the road for the time it took her to dial the number a few times (screwed up the digits or something). So was she impaired more than she would have been had she been drunk? At least equally, I'd say.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
This study, no matter how many people they studied is beyond inaccurate (much like my spelling).
I will say that people that allow a conversation while driving are distracted...but...that doesnt mean that they are poorer drivers.
I have always been able to concentrate on the road while on the phone. The reason is simple, if my wife (the only person that calls me in the middle of rush hour while im on 95) knows not to get into a serious conversation. I can't count how many times I have said hold on, or what did you say because the road had my attention.
People that give the phone more attention than the road drive like drunks.... but that is far from everyone.
Stop signs are only Suggestions
this story is 1-2 days old. /. - where to come for old news. Pathetic.
Have you ever noticed that when somebody is walking down the sidewalk, if they start talking on their cellphone their walk slows, or they even stop and stand during the cellphone conversation?
If we can't even -walk- and talk on cellphones, why would anybody think we could -drive- and talk on cellphones? Just our walking behavior alone tells us that there's something inherently distracting about talking on a cellphone.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
The police are supposed to ticket people driving while talking without a hands free set in NY and NJ. I want them to enforce this STRONGLY. I'm TIRED of driving in fear of these idiots.
If you want to survive a trip on any major highway around here, you need be prepared to evade someone who is about to slam into you at 55 MPH because they can't properly steer their enormous SUV while they're chatting with their dear Aunt Millie.
My mom was driving on the car and we were talking about something. Then my sister starts yelling "LOOK OUT!!!!"
My mom freaks out and burns the tires in a horrible screech.
Two seconds later, my sister says... "a little bird..."
Followed by the little bird flying away.
"Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation"
Was this tested against the driver and the passenger having a conversation?
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
* Sniff! *
Whaddayamean?!?
* Hic! *
I don't drive like a cell-phone driver!
You can get a free "drive now - talk later" bumper sticker from the guys at Car Talk: http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/Drive-Now/ bumper-sticker2.html
That said, similar arguments were also made against the first radios that people included with cars. Probably those arguments had a point, too -- but new technologies do just tend to elicit this kind of fear and public backlash.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I remember something similar happening to me with alcohol, back when I drove a motorcycle. I'm no lightweight, but I noticed that even ONE drink with supper would affect my ability to hold a particular line on mountain roads -- even when I didn't feel impaired at all. Ever after, I held to an "eight-hour rule", just like pilots.
Most women talk with their car guest way more than I do through a cell phone. So, what's the difference again between talking on a cell phone and talking with a friend sitting by you? Oh, I see... you are more likely to turn your eyes away from the road with the friend in the next seat over... wait... hmmm... I guess I'll drive by myself from now on.
The shortest distance between to points is a chord.
Although I agree with 98% of the article, there is one part I do not agree with
Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation.'
If you're not competent enough to talk on a hands-free unit while driving, you should be limited to a one seat car.
Talking on a hands-free is basically the same as conversing with someone who is sitting next to you in the passenger seat.
Driving more slowly can be dangerous as well. I've seen many accidents nearly causes and a number actually occur right in front of me because somebody unneccesarily slowed down *far* too much than was necessary, i.e. when making turns, etc. What's worse is people who slow when merging (instead of just meeting the speed of the lane they're merging into), who slow *before* going up hills (wtf?), people who drive 50 in a 65mph fast lane (in otherwise safe conditions) and force traffic to swerve around them, and so on.
It's far safer to keep with the flow of traffic, even if it's what you might consider 'fast', than to be the one car out there interrupting the rest of traffic. And if you really can't drive that fast safely, then take another lane or another route where you can safely drive slower.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
THINK that they are above average drivers.
When was the last time you talked to someone who admitted that they were a bad driver?
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
using your cellphone while driving is forbidden and punishable by law.
:(
Well, at least in theory
Actually, it's very possible that they are using the word "likely" to refer to the probabilistic nature of the data they have.
I'd go so far as to say that that's likely what they did.
hawk
The linked article is a bunch of crap, and I suspect the writers have ulterior motives based on the way they present the data. As bad as a 0.8% drunk? Bull! Something like 50% of all fatalities are caused by drunk drivers, and I bet there are a lot more people talking on the phone than there are people driving drunk-- and they cause nowhere near 50% of road fatalities. Plus, when I talk on my cellphone, I don't do so unless the road is clear and the traffic is calm. If there's an incident ahead of me, I stop talking while I concentrate on the road.
I bet that people have slower reaction times when changing the radio station. Have slower reactions on clear sunny days. Have slower reactions while disciplining their kids. Have slower reactions while not tailgating. And guess what? The slower reaction times on sunny days and while not tailgating don't make the driver less safe, it just means the driver alters his approach based on the surroundings.
To answer the question: essentially, there is no difference as long as the driver pays attention to the road the same way in both circumstances. The people who want to ban talking on a cell phone while driving are probably the same people who would rather drive cross-country than fly because "driving is safer." It isn't. They even bring up the "what about the children" argument, which might as well replace Goddard's law.
on't want to die in a car accident, then don't get in a car. Want to punish cell phone drivers who cause accidents? Fine, just make sure you treat all distracted drivers the same, and good luck deciding whether or not a driver is legally distracted. I'm sick of these holier-than-thou troublemakers who come to a conclusion then go looking desperately for the facts to back it up. This study does nothing of the sort, but it hasn't stopped our brain-dead media from trumpeting a worthless study that "proves" talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous.
I do try to avoid using my cell phone while i drive, but i garantee you that when i do you use my first priotiry is the road. I may ask people on the phone to repeat, if i drop the phone and cant find it whitout taking my eyes off the road, then i guess it will have to wait till i pull over. In my case its not so much that the cell phone takes my attention off the road, but the road takes atttention away from my cell phone. Also not everyone is good at mulitasking. So honestly it really depends on the person.
I know a fair bit of people on the other hand that arent fit to be on the road if they are on their cell phone, and truely they might as well be drunk.
Then there are other people who dont pay attention to the road even when they are not on the cell phone, so you can imagine a cell phone just makes things worse.
So it all comes down to one thing, Talk responsibly !
Strayer, D. L., & Johnston, W. A. (2001). Driven to distraction: Dual-task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular telophone. Psychological Science, 12(6), 462-466.
Strayer, D. L., Drews, F. A., & Johnston, W. A. (2003). Cell phone-induced failures of visual attention during simulated driving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9(1), 23-32. (emphasis mine)
I shall have to see if I can acquire these reports. However, I would feel better about the conclusions if they came from more than one source: D. L. Strayer and W. A. Johnston appear to have done the bulk of the work [in both reports] collaboratively. A second report from a wholly different group would help validate Strayer & Johnston's work.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If hands-free systems don't help, why are they still sold? And should avoid having conversations with my passengers? There are people who can walk and chew gum and others who can't. Talking while driving doesn't affect everyone.
- peterd
What's SuperBowl ? Is it like a laxative or something ?
The argument that you are actively involved in a phone conversation and pay less attention to driving is valid statistically I'm sure, but not a fair absolute assessment of human capability. Actively talking with a passenger or actively singing along with music or actively concentrating on something in your mind is just as much of a risk.
Driving with a cellphone disables you from using both hands (without a hands free system). Sure... well guess what? I drive a stick so typically I only have one hand on the wheel anyway and I guarantee I do a much better job with that one hand than many people do with both, or would do with three were the option available.
The majority of people that have accidents while on the phone are probably not good drivers to begin with. I don't trust most drivers regardless of what they're doing in their car. If people would learn to pay attention while driving there would be less accidents.
Everyone should be retested for their drivers license at age 65 (give or take). Yesterday I was at a complete stop at a redlight (where I had been sitting still for over 30 seconds) when the old man driving behind me, who was also at a complete stop, began inching closer and closer to my vehicle. He was watching the lane to the left of us inching forward and he began inching forward to follow suit even though our lane was NOT MOVING at all. I watched him in my rear view mirror not really concerned with getting tapped on the bumper at 1mph but curious as to what he would do. Well he kept inching forward until he bumped into me and then of course had a startled look on his face when he realized that he was not actually in the moving lane of traffic that he had been staring at but instead just accelerated into an essentially parked car.
Sure some old folks can drive just fine, and quite safely and cautiously at that. But the other group of elderly... who can't pay attention long enough to remember that they are standing in their lawn because they were on their way to check their mail... they should not be rear-ending me at a stop light.
Regardless of the fact that someone is old, drunk, on a cellphone or any combination of the three... if you can't safely drive a vehicle to begin with, I don't think it proves any point when you demonstrate that you can't drive while impaired.
And are you "like 15" or something?
Im drvnig riht now, an posting to salsgdot though my wirless servic. i dont oarticulaly see the diifficulty. mabe otjers just dopnt have good drving skils.
In all seriousness, though, this simply comes down to personal responsiblity. When I'm driving and I have to take a call, I let the person on the other end of the phone know that they're only going to get the attention of the small part of my mind that isn't focused on driving. If I'm in a heavy traffic situation, I tell the person on the other end I'm going to have to call them back. In other words: take some fscking personal accountability for your actions or stop complaining that we live in a nanny state.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
First of all
Talking on a cell phone != driving drunk
These article uses simulators to study reaction time. Simulators != real world situations. In real world cases, talking on a cell phone only accounts for 1.5% of distracted driving accidents.
I heard an interview with the designers of the orignal cell phone/alchol study, and they were frustrated that their results had been interpreted in such a way. Most people talking on a cell phone are generally in traffic situations, with surrounding cars and reduced time to react if something happens. Drunk drivers on the other had generally cause accidents with eratic driving caused by reduced motor and cognitive functioning with many fewer drivers around. Remember that most drunk driving occurs at night with much less traffic.
Similators can show the similar results of reduced response time through impairment, but the not the source or real world effect of that impairment
We had to destroy the sig to save the sig.
http://fugly.com/media/AUDIO/funny/blondestar.m
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
but methinks you're looking for this
He called back a few minutes later, and I finally got him to admit that he turned the wrong way down a one way street, and dropped the phone to deal with it. Luckily, the nearest oncoming car was two blocks away.
--- Ban humanity.
Whats worse than Cell Phone drivers is idiots text messaging while driving. I see it all the time. WTF? I hate the blackberry corporation and everything it stands for. I want my 40 hour day back.
That a 70 year old person driving with a cell phone turns into a 120 year old.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
I think some of you are missing the point. The majority of people with cellphones are teenagers and there cannot be much worse than a 16 year old on a cellphone after just getting their license.
I just recently acquired a cell phone after not owning one for 5 years. Driving with my previous cell phone was never an option since I couldn't drive back then. :)
I tried driving whilst talking on my cell phone (helping a friend troubleshoot his PC as it happens) just once to see what it was like on some back roads. Now, I've never driven drunk (really!) but it certainly felt that way. I kept over correcting and had a hard time keeping the vehicle under control. Incidentally, this was without a hands-free kit.
Now, I've only been driving 12 months and therefore lack experience so it may have affected me more than an experienced driver. It certainly cemented why I hate driving behind someone else who's talking on their phone, though.
It's not really a problem in Portland Oregon. (at least on the highways)
We have such a bad traffic problem that we can frickin do needle point while waiting for the cars to move inches... I say pave the whole fuckin country. (We need more roads. Need more bandwith!)
Seriously, I have a really stupid question. Why do the trucks drive in the "slow" lane where they have to get out of incoming/exiting traffic? Would it not be better to let them go the "fast" speed and let them stay in the left lane for 100's of miles? It's been bugging me for years...
So is it the case that driving on cellphones kills and injures more people than drunk driving? If not, then whatever metrics they used (braking times, whatever) must not be the only factors affecting the overall kill/maim outcome, and as such their headlining the comparison to drunk driving might just qualify as specious hype... since the propaganda and administrative and legal efforts surrounding drunk driving are specifically aimed at lowering death and injury rates, rather than at reducing braking times.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
The lesson I'm taking away is that I can drive drunk OR talk on the cell phone, but not both. Now THAT'S really bad.
If it was just the act of holding a cell phone in your hand while driving that caused the problems, then I think that people who eat or drink, or people who drive standard transmissions would also cause those kinds of problems. This is why (as someone else has already mentioned in this thread) hands-free attachments don't really help much. People carrying on conversations with someone who isn't in the car feel obligated to invest a good portion of their attention to the call, and not to the road. This is why people talking to another person in the car isn't usually a problem. The person in the car can see whats happening, and will understand if you don't respond right away to something.
Aside from the occasional "I-hit-someone-because-I-dropped-my-phone" situations, I'd say that hands-free doesn't really mean that much.
Maybe if you call someone on a cell phone while driving in a car, you should just say 'Pay attention to the road and don't worry if you have to be silent for a few minutes while you drive' or some other equivalent disclaimer.
(Obviously thats not going to happen, but allowing hands-free talking and outlawing normal cell calls isn't going to help.)
And they said zombies weren't real!
Wow, I drive like a pro when talking on my cellphone! That must mean I'm pretty good after taking down half a fifth of Jack Daniel's too! Sweet!
"Hang up and drink"
--- What?
Something else that should be considered is that cell phone use by -passangers- interrupts the driver as well.
My husband and I were heading to a friends house, and I called my friend on my cell phone to ask if he needed anything from the store while we were en route.
When traffic got bad, I was too busy dealing with the cell phone to realize traffic was bad, and this distracted the driver. The driver (poor hubby) had to get snappy to get me to shut up while he was paying attention to the road.
Frankly, that same senario has popped up several times. Cellphones have no place in cars -- either by driver OR by the passanger, in my opinion. Now, if I need to call, I try to make the call from the gas station or when the car isn't moving rather than when it is.
-- RJ
The speaker usually enunciates very loudly and clearly directly into the mic
n ow ...howyalldoin?"
:) Perhaps you mean Ham operators?
Typical Floridian CB operator:
"WellhowdypardnerI'mdrivindowni95inmachevyright
Not very clear to me...
There are people who shouldn't talk to others in their cars while they drive. Or drink coffee. Or listen to the radio. Those people are dangerous -- they're barely able to drive as it is, obviously.
Some of us on the other hand can carry on in-depth conversations and still focus on driving properly. There's no difference whether I'm talking on my headset or to my passengers -- and I rarely drive without talking to someone.
Get over it.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
How is a hands free set any different from actually have a ocnversation with say your wife, or the kids in the back? Is speaking to be banned altogether?
It's usually cranked up to a very high volume, so you're not straining to hear it. The speaker usually enunciates very loudly and clearly directly into the mic.
Wow, sounds just like every cellphone user to me!
You are assuming fully attentive adults. What about kids? The blind? The mentally retarded? You could effectively carry conversations with them and they are likely not going to be aware of the traffic conditions.
Live forever, or die trying.
had a problem with a cell driver on my way home just last night... I didnt know what was wrong with this person, I swore they were drunk, constantly losing control and swirving back to avoid going in the other lane on the highway. as soon as there were no cars, theyd drive on the line in the middle so no one could pass. almost hit 2 different people, and horn blowing had no effect on this dope. I finally got to where the highway splits to 3 lanes and exercised the SHO a little to get up past them.. look over, some dopey woman on the phone, looking down as if shes reading something.... I promptly flipped the bird, and went on my way.
Tons of people drive drunk based on exactly the same rationale you just used. Which isn't to say you couldn't be right for you -- but maybe you want to seriously consider whether you're being exactly like those drunks leaving the bar.
(Personally, and I'm honest about it -- I drive like crap when someone I don't know very well is in the passenger seat.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
This is just the obvious choice. I commute in LA daily and I talk on my cell phone (usually while putting on sunscreen and eating an in and out burger, occasionally sipping on a chocolate milkshake, etc.) I have had situations when some person did something untoward during my time out on the racetrack (as I like to refer to the freeway system) and I just threw my cellphone like a bandit and floored it (or slammed on the brakes or whatever appropriate maneuver).
I found my car stereo randomly playing a cd in FF for no apparent reason when I was trying to change a few lanes the other day more jarring.
Also, if you are drunk already what does a cell phone do? More research is clearly needed.
See you on the roads.
The solution is very simple. Euthanize, euthanize, euthanize. Recycle our elderly and turn them into fuel. ;)
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
So what happens when drunk drivers whip out their cellphones, do the two cancel each other out?
In many studies, it is shown that women make more errors than men in driving. Men on the otherhand are more risk takers and their accidents are usually associated with excess speed which has a higher percentage of fatalities. That is why men pay more for insurance.
Good post -- interesting and informative.
-kgj
-kgj
A drunk can't drop the phone or hang up and suddenly have his BAC drop back to normal if a situation starts to arise. It's rare that an accident is sudden, usually multiple things have to go wrong ahead of time for it to happen. Even on a cell phone you can notice this if you're not a complete retard. The drunk is impaired no matter what. He can't react to a stimulus and shed his impairment in a matter of seconds.
Why not drop all these nonsense and give reckless driving tickets to those who are driving recklessly. If someone elderly/on a cell phone/looking for an address/etc. is swerving or being troublesome then cite them for what they did wrong. If they can handle themselves in these situations then they're not harming anyone.
Funny how preemptive war is automatically bad, but preemtive limitations of our rights are a-ok.
When we began this discussion several years ago, It was supposed that distracted driving caused a significant proportion of deaths on the road, but that the exact proportion of deaths was unknown due perhaps to people being embarassed about the cause. Later on, the AAA listed the causes of distracted driving in an unrelated study. Number 7 on the list was cellphone usage. Number 1 on the list was eating while driving. No correlation of the two lists can really be made since the AAA study did not look at accidents and the accident studies did not go into details about the specific distraction, but some in the media harped on it and got cellphones banned in cars in a number of states.
Interestingly, although food was at the top of the list, no one talked about it. As if the supposed much greater risk of food consumption while driving is actually a necessary and acceptable risk while cellphone use is not. Could this be an example of luddites and safety nazis coming together to cause us all inconvenience? I don't know. I do know that we should look at eliminating or specifically accepting behaviors which account for the greatest proportion of accidents/deaths first and later move on to the lesser causes. (or attack a bunch of causes at once, but never go after the lesser problems first and let the greater problems fester and kill and maim)
This is related to the discussion about banning cellphones in airplanes. Originally, the FAA regulations allowed airlines to ban RF-emitting devices in cabins as anything emitting RF could potentially cause problems with avionics and result in crashed planes. Rather than put thought into what devices could be problematic, the airlines just banned everything and didn't think about it. cut to today: apparantly, and according to the airlines so i have no idea how it works, cell phones have been determined to not really be a problem. They are now looking into allowing cellphone usage during flights. The discussion has evolved into the social question of whether people talking on cellphones durnig flight would be acceptable. Apparantly the extra noise is offensive to people.
People, relax. Cell phones are not cigarettes. There is no evidence that their usage is harmful to persons nearby and scant evidence that their usage might be harmful to users. Just because it's the snobby thing to do to look down your nose at cellphone users doesn't mean we should ban them from every aspect of our lives by legislation. (hmm, maybe they are like cigarettes. That's another rant altogether.)
How about we just conclude that anything which is sufficiently distracting will impair your ability to drive safely?
Big Macs, iced cappucino, scantily clad women on the corner, giant electronic billboards.....
Of course cel phones are an easy target...
Three Squirrels
What about those touch screens in cars now with different menus for radio controls, heating and AC, etc? That can't be a good thing to try navigating at 70MPH. What ever happened to having a knob or button for everything? I miss separate bass/treble/balance/fader controls on car stereos. I don't want to go through a menu to adjust them.
:\
iPods are pretty dangerous too.
Call it flamebait or troll if you want, but it's a fact many people are willing to take the "extra risk" of phones+cars.
The total number of crashes and fatalities in the US is lower than 30 years ago despite more people on the road. The crash, fatality, and injury rates per million miles are still decreasing. I'll take my chances and give you a call to let you know how it turns out.
Your friendly gov't PDF report
Post anonymously - that's gotta be wife proof
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
David Strayer has been kind enough to provide an index of papers and articles he's authored or co-authored on this subject (no few - while I would never suggest any kind of bias, he really seems to have it out for cellphones.):
_ 2001.pdf
http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/
From that index may I point out an item that appears to suggest that merely carry on a conversation even absent the mechanical problems associated with a cell phone/earbud etc. will cause impairment:
http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/ViV
This would seem to support the use of HOV lanes not as a reward for environmental sensitivity but as a safety measure for the rest of us singletons just trying to get to work in one piece; HOV need to be partitioned from the rest of traffic to protect us, heh. And what if the passenger is wearing a skimpy dress(!)while yaking about the absolute DEAL they got at Nordstroms.
Never mind the distraction factor from changing the radio station/CD, eating, makeup, picking nose, etc. Surely tasks that involve the motor regions would be even more troublesome than simply speaking...
In another item from the DoT, all autos will now be refitted with passenger gags.
So in other words, talking to someone while your driving makes you worse then 0.08 BAC?
That's not surprising, someone with a 0.08 BAC is hardly even impaired. That said, the researchers seem to be saying that talking to someone makes you a bad driver. I guess we'd better ban passengers! Or at least make sure the driver isn't talking to them, perhaps we could install dB meters in all cars that they can't run unless the cabin noise level is below a certain threshold.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I thought that cellphone companies were working to make cellphones smaller... not big enough to be driven around in. The signal must screw with your brain, with the phone that big... that's probably why they drive like drunks.
Availability of family makes a HUGE difference. My mom never got a car because we used to live close to decent shopping, and by the time most of the shops closed, I had a car. I live about 5 minutes from her and drive her where she needs to go. If I wasn't nearby, it would be a lot harder for her to get by without a car.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Would use of video phones reduce the distraction? Since you're not visualizing, you don't have part of your brain imaging what the other person looks like, moreover they have visual cues as to whether they might need to shut up.
I've been on this soapbox before, and I'll be on it again. We need cars that drive themselves. We need legislation that limits manufacturer liability so we can get autodriving cars out on the road. We as geeks need to solve the problem of inattentive drivers technologically, not socially.
The whole reason this country has Walmart and no corner grocery store is because of transportation!
/. though... no answers, lots of complaining.
Yep. That's it. Nuclear families too! That's the reason.
The truth is, it's greed. People have become accustomed to space, cars, homes with large yards.
I don't want to EVER live in an apartment building again. I did it for years, and it's NOT worth it. The confused, cross-dressing drunk downstairs with liquor delivered daily, and fights all night long with her boyfriend(s). The drug dealer upstairs. The wife-beater and child abuser across the hall. It was nice, being so close. I really, really enjoyed coming home and smeling piss in the stairwell. Or seeing blood in the elevator from the drug deal gone bad.
All of this in a very nice urban neighborhood. Police don't care, don't listen, and when they do, it takes 30 minutes for them to respond.
Nope... I'll shop at Walmart because their stock is in my 401K, and the tax revenue pays for the schools my kids will attend in a few years. Walmart hired my neighbors' kids, and they teach them to WORK. They don't get anything for free.
The US transportation system is a basket case... compare to what... to Europe? Europe is 1/2 the size, twice the population. Compared to Japan? Japan, again, their population is crowded into a tiny, teensy area.
Let's compare it to Russia, or China, or Australia. Or Canada. Mexico.
Hmmm. Doesn't look so bad now... does it? Typical socialist bullshit here on
the data showed that involvement in the conversation was the key.
so why didn't they test what happens if you're talking to a passenger IN the car with you?
"Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation."
So whats really being said here is that if the driver talks to anyone, they become impared.....
Dear God, what if that driver has kids and is listening to the radio, with the passenger talking to them and the kids screaming in the back.... I guess that driver would be about 450 years old in that comparison... lol
is probably at least as dangerous. They should take away the driver licenses of programmers. They don't need to drive anyway since the only way you can work 80+ hours per week is by living at work.
The other funny thing I've noticed is that CB communications often make every trucker seem like they share the exact same personality. I think that's another thing that makes it less distracting than a phone; they're not trying to project a very broad range of emotions.
is that a 0.08 BAC level is not very dangerous at all. Prettymuch anything is more dangerous then that, including actualy drinking, a regular beverage.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
*sigh* and I thought they made a break through for my smart phone....
The fine state of Florida renewed my 86 year old Grandmother's Driver's license, via the mail, a year after she had passed away. Hope that makes you feel real safe on the family holiday to Disney World. The Q-Tips rule Flordia. They makes sure the education system is poorly funded and that Matlock is always on television.
Bad comparison. Driving and talking on the phone use two different types of thinking while talking and reading/writing both use your verbal brain.
I really enjoy listening to NPR while driving, however, comming from the television generation I have a very hard time just sitting and listening to talk radio, I fidget, tap my fingers and get distracted by things. - not enough stimulation of other senses.
A better test of your theory would be to sit down and do a pencil sketch of a doodle or hand copy a picture from a magazine while having the conversation on a "handsfree" phone. I think you would find (or at least I do) that the visual/physical work and verbal work compete little or at all.
Now raise the state safe BAC level to 0.20 like I've been saying all these years!
Truely. My aunt says she hasn't had an accident ever-in the entire time she's ever drove, so probably 45+ years.
It's funny, because for as long as I've known her she absolutely would not drive on freeways. I can respect that... The rest of us are safer for it!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
No one ever said having passengers caused you to drive like a nut. Are we gunna ban in car conversations or passengers altogether? Mine as well since we're giving up more and more freedoms these days anyway...
I disagree.
The problem with the cell phone (hands-free or hands-on) is that it takes your concentration *out of the car*. When you talking to someone in the car, you and that person are still in the car. The car never leaves the picture. On the phone, your mind is someplace else - picturing the other person in their environment or the both of you someplace else.
I think there is a difference - not to say that people distracted with passengers can't be bad drivers.
A better example would be another motor activity combined with a cell phone conversation. Talking while cooking, talking while walking, talking while chewing gum (well, maybe not that one). While it is more distracting, it's not as onerous a task as you're making it out to be. You may miss reading some street signs, but the designers of those were smart enough to make the important ones recognizable even if you can't read.
I keep hearing about how handsfree is as bad as regular mobile phone - sounds crazy to me. If this so, then a driver talking to the passengers should be just as dangerous. So no talking in the car, and definitely no eating.
I live in Columbus. The buses (and there aren't that many, anyway) shut late at night and on weekends; in addition, there are lots of places which aren't accessible by bus or which would take (easily) two or three times as long to reach. Using the bus limits anyone's options severely - to get good jobs, to be able to go to school, or shopping, or anything.
Without good public transit, giving up the car is like crippling yourself. While there are a lot of old drivers that I don't want on the roads, I can see why it would be hard to give up. If I have to depend on others to get around, I don't have independence. Bad public transit makes you live on the buses's time rather than your own - you're dependent, all over again. In addition, considering the safety net here seems to be disappearing as fast as beer at a grad student party, you'd be better off mailing yourself about than relying on public services as your sole method of transportation
In Boston or San Francisco or NY, it's easy to get around without a licence - but most (old) people can't afford to live there. Where it's cheap to live (FL, OH, etc.), the public transit is the next best thing to getting to and from distant points by crawling on broken glass. As long as giving up the car means not being able to get around, old people will fight losing their licences like wolverines.
When I drive while talking on my cell and shifting my 5-speed (rare, but it happens... also smoking ;)), I let the conversation suffer instead of my driving. I tell people "ok, I'm driving, so you might have to repeat yourself." If people decide to keep talking then sometimes they have to wait for a respone ("ok, 1 sec, I gotta dodge this guy.... ok shoot."). I have no problem on an open stretch of highway but I imagine these tests have more to do with city drivers that have to constantly be on the lookout.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
we have come to know and hate from Socioligsts and Pschychologists who, we understand, are completely innumerate.
Hand helds (Handys in Germany), if you have ever used them, say in a hire car, are positively dangerous and should be banned by law.
Since 260 K/H (162 mph) is not un-usual on German autobahnen I usually slow to 140 K/H (88 mph) when in the office.
At 55 mph in the US, I have trouble not getting bored!
Some men, and almost all women, can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I thought this should be modded "informative", but on second thought decided "redundant" was applicable, too.
Given the main thrust of your last paragraph, "normal" seems to be the best solution.
Then I would suggest drivers not do that either. Presumably a child old enough to converse with would at least have an awareness of your driving (or if they didnt, you'd be willing and able to ignore them if keeping the car out of an accident and them alive warranted it).
And yes, I've seen parents turning around while driving and yelling at kids while driving too - and would certainly agree that its just as dangerous (And would hope that if a cop saw someone doing that they would pull them over and at least chew them out, it certainly qualifies as 'reckless driving' IMNSO)
Perhaps rather than making a new law saying you can't use your cellphone, just allow the definition of 'reckless driving' to include cellphone use.
Ban the automatic transmission. This will eliminate 90% of the idiots who need a hand (or 2) to hold their cell phone, put on makeup, read the newspaper, shave or what not.
Basically - I blame the automatic transmission for the downfall of american society. This instant convience, dumbing down has led us to where we are today.
Side-rant - cars are too safe and too easy to drive. Put everybody in a Porsche 356 or a Corvair or something with a swing axle rear suspension that requires them to pay attention and they won't have time to talk on the phone. The problem is their Canyonero is literally point and shoot, the car will track straight while they catch a few Z's or whatever until it hits the proverbial immovible object.
The reading is 8% weight per volume, hence "0.08".
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
I still drive like ralph schumacher(sp?) when I'm having a three-way...
This is the sound of sarcasim.
heh, this is my favourite topic to discuss... We don't need no stupid studies on this, as it is so obvious. People talking on the phone and driving are more careless, distracted and make more driving errors and I don't care what anyone else says. I do a lot of driving and when one sees a car drifting, swerving, going too slow, missing their right of way, cutting others off, or generally driving reckless, (IMO) it's almost always someone using their phone. Being a bit ADD, I prefer not to do it and will either not answer or will turn off to talk as I will concentrate on either driving or talking, but not both! Especially pathetic are those using the PTT mode and holding the phone way out in front of them but high up enough so the driver can see both the phone and the road and/or driving way too slow whilst they look in the mirror for a time to move over to another lane while talking away. I've always been bemused by the fact that people feel they must be accessable at all times. Imagine 15 years ago? Life went on just fine without phones everywhere. The cartalk guys are right!
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, his reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver," said David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study. "It's like instant aging."
This is the truth! I answered my cell phone in the car and immediately plowed into a farmers' market.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
i don't think thats true. the way i understand it, studies have shown that driving while talking on the cellphone is just as dangerous as driving while talking to a passenger.
Truck drivers, taxi drivers, cops... Are they impaired too? Let's take the cops radios away!
Next thing you know cops will be asking you to submit to a cellalyzer test, that can tell if your cellphone has been on and next to your head within the past few hours. Impairment will be registered in %BAC (busy at cellphone, %time). There will be arrests of kids with opened 6-packs of prepaid disposable cellphones in the front seat with only half the minutes left on them. In Massachusetts only certain stores will be licenses to sell "hard cliquor" phones with 1000 proof flat rate plans. Etc etc.
The OP was suggesting pulling people over based on signs that would not be exhibted by someone with the level of impairment the study suggests is present.
Perhaps there *should* be a DWC that could be tacked onto the regular traffic offenses, but there isn't.
hawk, esq
There is a reason it is nicknamed "die 15".
I'm in Vegas, and so I end up taking it quite often.
Scary road.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
1 L = 1 kg
100 mL = 0.1 L = 0.1 kg = 100 g
g/100 mL = g/100 g = straight percentage
So a BAC of 1.0 g/deciliter (the way I've usually see it expressed) is equivalent to 1%. If it were milligrams/dL you'd potentially have BACs up to 100 000 (100 grams per 100 mL, * 1000 milligrams per gram, for blood that's pure alcohol) and there's no way your blood could be 100,000% alcohol.
-- Old Man Kensey
My wife is legally blind. That doesn't stop her from telling me how to drive! Submitted Anonymous to protect my "Love Life".
I don't really listen to anyone on the phone anyway...
Karma: Good, or bust!
I think cellphone use while driving is actually worse than driving drunk because cellphone-drivers are generally driving around at rush hour when there are lots of other cars and pedestrians on the road. Drunk drivers are generally driving around at 2:30am on mostly empty roads.
I am amused by your post. Were I in possession of mod-points, I would bestow them upon you.
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
From this same /. article http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=138120 &cid=11553341
I agree - I've always thought they ought to study if voice quality was related.
My hypothesis is that the main reason there's a difference between talking on the phone and talking to a passenger is that your brain needs to work harder to do some signal processing on the audio from the cellphone. And THAT is where the tunnel vision comes through. This sort of thing could be easily tested by having people have conversations using the same headset, but using different quality voice: cellphone quality (vocoded to ~7Kbps), telephone quality (64Kbps), and (mono) CD quality (700Kbps). Then you have them do the same sorta tasks that this study had them do.
Sure, part of it is that the person on the other end of the phone doesn't know when to pause, BUT if the driver is smart enough to say "hang on" when necessary [and put the phone down if not using hands free], then you can eliminate some of that stuff. That's a BIG BUT though - most people don't "get" that you can stop somebody mid-sentence if you have to.
Hands free devices un-restrict you from turning your head, and make you have 2 hands on the wheel. In general I like the idea behind them, I feel more attenting while using one, but if the headset isn't already attached to the phone and the phone starts ringing, I'm probably MORE of a hazard trying to plug it in while driving.
adam
I grew up in a rural area a couple hours south of San Fran and the bus system there was much worse. It got to the point where there were 5 buses a day that serviced my neighborhood. You were SOL if you needed to get home after 7pm.
:)
Fortunately hitchhiking was common enough to be a viable alternative. Many times it was faster than the bus and definitely cheaper
Has anyone done any studies as to whether it is the cell phone usage, or the fact that the person is thinking about a stuff related to the conversation that causes a reduction of response?
The reason I ask is that I think it would be interesting to compare these situations.
1> The driver is having a conversation while driving with a person over a cell phone using a hands free device.
2> The driver is having a conversation while driving with someone sitting in the seat next to him/her.
3> The driver is having a conversation while driving with someone sitting in the back seat. (behind the driver and out of view)
I wonder what the results of this would be.
It used to be you'd see people reading, brushing their teeth, checking their hair or even dancing. Now all the drunk looking drivers are on cell phones, except the very rare very extreme alcoholics (I hope they die alone).
I drive a long distance on a nasty interstate, through a couple of major cities, so I've seen all kind of driving styles (even seen a drunk hit someone) and cell phone problems are getting worse and worse. I don't think this problem will solve itself without some kind of government involvement. I wish we had a hand signal for "hang up and drive, you look drunk."
I admit I have my own problem, but I've finally convinced my wife that just because she wants to have a fight over the cell phone and I hang up, it isn't personal, since if she wants me to live long enough to fight again, I need to hang up and drive. I've exaggerating, I've never really had a girlfriend.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Any distraction can impair driving.
I can think of lots of things just as distracting as cell phones:
* actively listening to the radio
* actively carrying on a deep conversation
* monitoring the kids in the back seat
* changing the radio station or CD track
* trying to remember the name of the next exit
* going over the meeting you will have with your client in 15 minutes
And the list goes on.
Some people can multitask well, others can't. Others can only on familiar roads.
Cell phones aren't the problem. People trying to multitask in situations that require full concentration is the problem.
The bottom line:
Don't ban or restrict cellphones for most users. DO restrict them for new drivers including teenagers. DO restrict them for drivers who have a recent history of careless driving which resulted in a ticket or accident. DO allow phone use to be considered in civil cases after an accident, but do NOT make it a presumption of fault: Give the cell-phone user a chance to show the court he can drive and talk at the same time.
If you do ban cell phones, ban kids in the car, radios, and anything else that might be a distraction to the driver.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I don't know if a 20 year old driver is less scary than a 70 year old. They both have poor driving vision and reflexes; the main difference is that the 20 year old drives faster. Why didn't they talk about good drivers, like middle-aged longtime commuters?
Good thing I'm 26 and excempt from this study.
A 90 year old driving a car, that can't find the way because he is drunk, pulls out his cellphone and calls his grand-grand-grand-son to help him sort things out.
If you're driving along, talking to a person sitting next to you, and get distracted, the passenger has the ability to say "Whoah! Look out, before you hit that guy!"
If you are talking to that person on your cell phone, the other talker has no visual feedback, and therefore no way to help you avoid being road-kill.
IMHO, that is a bigger part of why people on cell phones drive worse. If it was the talking part, than EVERYONE talking in their car would be flying off the road.
Am I fundamentally wrong?
How about letting people use their handheld phones while driving IF they have disabled their airbags, antilock brakes and seatbelts? That way, if we are to believe that cell phone users crash constantly, they will take themselves out of the gene pool? Ditto speeding. Allow speeding if all safety devices are disabled.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Lets just ban having any passengers in the vehicle too as they also require me to be 'part of a conversation'. Also - we need to ban stereos in cars too, as they are going to take your attention away too.
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
Favorite jammer sources:
GlobalGadget
GrandTrades
PhoneJammer
Starport
Build Your Own!
I'm a little dubious of this finding because even though cell phone use has increased dramatically, actual accidents and injuries have fallen over the same period.
Since drunk driving is a major driver of accidents, IIRC something like 50%, it would seem that anything that had the same effect as drunk driving would drive up accident rates significantly. Especially, since a far higher percentage of population drives and talks than ever drive drunk.
I think it this study, or at least the summary of it, exaggerates the danger.
3 kids in the back seat kicking you in the butt and throwing peanut butter around as you argue about abortion with your wife while the radio blasts mariachi music is definately more distracting than talking on the cell phone.
maybe we should make that illegal too.
how about you wussies who wet yourselves while hiding under your couch during a thunderstorm and pass useless legislation telling everyone what to do and how to behave, strap on your helmets and kneepads and seat belts and take your care bear nerf tricycles with training wheels and airbags and rollbars on over to your local elementary school safety town and stay there. and leave the rest of us free to enjoy life.
We could use a multilevel license system that recognizes that some people have the skills, knowledge and the attention level to drive well, and lots of people do not.
The top tier would be reserved for folks with a minimum level of driving experience and test-proven skills. The driving test would be like an autocross in heavy traffic. The knowledge test would have questions that weed out the poseurs, like "why do you drive in the left lane when you aren't passing anyone?", "what is that control stalk on the left of the steering wheel for?" and "do you have any idea what that funny lane in the middle of a two-way road is?" (Answer: the left turn lane. There are only about half a dozen people in the US that know this.)
This top tier would have a more realistic speed limit (like 90mph or so) and a dedicated left lane, replacing all those underutilized diamond lanes.
Dumbass kids who have no idea what is going on would be grouped with old fogies and first time drivers as lower level drivers. They would have mandatory speed regulators and little alarms that go off whenever the car changes direction too suddenly.
Certain modifiers would reduce a top tier driver to lower tier status; talking on a cell phone, arguing with the passengers, and mild intoxication come to mind. Anyone with the lower base level who drives in these conditions could be pulled over for reckless driving, have their license revoked and be subject to public humiliation, like freeway cleanup with a giant "I drive poorly" sign above their head.
I'll bet the MADD ladies will never fight for 3rd offence cell phone driving to be a felony.
I knew a girl once who could text-message on a cell phone about as fast as most people type in IM. She had AIM on her phone. I messaged her once, asked what's up. She says she's driving. It's pouring rain outside so I say I should probably let her go. She says it's fine. Ok...
So latter in the conversation she IMs me "brb accident". Then a minute later, "back". I ask if she's OK, someone run into someone?. She says she's fine. On the side of the road now. Backwards. Still right-side-up at least.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I was talking to my friend in my car and I was pulling up to a light that is ALWAYS red when i get there.
But this time it was green and I stopped anyway.(still talking)
When it turned red, all I noticed was that the light changed colors and I didn't notice what color it was.
I ran the light and confused the hell out of someone making a left turn.
I think it might be a mistake to compare the two, on Slashdot, but I've been living in Korea (south) for a year now, and all those things you've witnessed happen here on a regular basis. Of course, this being an Asian country, people would die if they didn't answer their phones. Some of the more bizarre things I've seen here include:
- A motorcycle rider, sans helmet, riding with one hand, mobile phone in the other, with a passanger on the back.
- Triple parking near a market on a daily basis (everybody leaves their mobile phone numbers on the dashboard, so that they can be reached in order to move their cars).
- Taxi drivers with midichlorins in their blood, who drive with Jedi reflexes, I swear to God.
Luckily, so-called "road rage" hasn't caught on here yet, so arguments are generally limited to shouting at each other whilst waiting for the police to arrive. An annoying policy is that in the event of a car accident, the cars are to be left where they hit, be it in the middle of an intersection or not. This makes for some long traffic jams.
In conclusion, in South Korea, it's not just the old people that drive as if they're drunk.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
Lets not forget about when you're driving and you get an email from your boss on your Blackberry (never mind if you need to reply!)
I agree with you that it involves some mental engagement for a space cushion, my point was that it still occupies some level of thought but that a competent driver lets driving go on auto-pilot.
I don't think auto-pilot mode that we are agreeing upin is safe at all, in fact it provides some people a false sense of security. It does still use their brain, just a different part. It's like when you write the letter 'a', you don't figure out how to draw two lines with specific curves and length just the right way, you just write an 'a' but it still uses mental processes.
In my experience, women are indeed much more accident-prone than men. But your garden variety accident isn't that expensive - my sister and my mother run into stuff all the time, but it usually just costs them a bumper or door dent or something.
On the other hand, how many people do you ever heard of who are driving 80 miles per hour down a back road, get airborne, and take out a tree, their car, and their three budies in the car, who are either over 25, female, or married? I'd bet none.
Now we're not talking about a $2,000 bumper repair with a $500 deductible, we're talking about exceeding the policy's limit for an accident; $100,000, $300,000, etc.
Anyway, point is insurance isn't about getting in accidents. Insurance is about how much liability the insured is exposing the insurance company to. It takes 200 "women can't drive" fender benders to equal one "single teenage males are morons" 80 MPH car vs. tree catastophe.
paintball
i think we should also outlaw passengers. the the only thing they're really good for anyway is getting into the hov lanes.
I've never understood how talking on a cell phone with a hands free kit is any different from talking with another passenger... Does this mean we should ban all passengers from cars as well or (as is more likely the case) admit that this study is full of crap?
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image. -Aubrey de Grey
...because when I read driver, I thought they were talking about the software in the phone written to communicate with the hardware....
for a while I was a member of a car club, and we'd rent Sears Point for a weekend, put on our helmets and do a little hard driving. I had the pleasure of having a brilliant driving instructor ride with me for one session. with him in the car talking to me about the track and about the other cars on the track and about my driving, I was able to drive better and better with each lap.
I've also been driving around San Francisco with a friend and she knows the city way better than I do, so she was able to say things like 'watch for that red light' in the middle of our otherwise non-driving-related conversation.
I don't even own a cellphone and if I did, I sure as heck wouldn't even _try_ to use it when driving.
while I've had fun driving and for the most part consider myself to be a reasonbly good driver when I put my mind to it, I cannot wait for the day when we have self-driving cars... if there's one thing that driving on the track has taught me it's that people driving on the streets are idiots. they don't pay attention and they haven't had nearly enough training.
Decay! Decay! Decay! -Helium
Most of these people know better, know it's dangerous, but they do it anyway. And they'll continue to do so until something happens to make them stop, like an accident or spendy ticket.
Perhaps the big picture notion to take away from all this is that no matter what new categories of bad drivers are fashionable, you can only control your rig.
I'd be in denial, too, if I had crappy vision and reaction times. Being old sucks.
The wails of the mobile phone industry notwithstanding, it's clear to all that mobile phone use in some way occupies a slice of the brain, causing slowed reaction times. Nothing new here, move along everyone.
... was walking across a parking lot when I had to jump out of the way of a speeding SUV (Expedition!) whose non-Y chromosome driver was on the phone and looking in her purse. And, yes, thanks for asking, she was angry at me after I yelled at her.
But wait!
We've all been told (well, at least us Y-chromosome types have) that women pay more attention to conversations than men. Actually (what did you say, dear?) I think that's right. They do value relationships more, they actually HAVE more converations.
Next, put the woman in control of an SUV, which isolates the driver from the world around and woohoo!
Yes, I was in a car that was hit (rearended at a stop sign by a woman driver, on the phone, Range Rover) last year. And then, while the car was being rebuilt
Thus my theory: the most dangerous drivers on the road are, without any doubt, teenage boys in powerful cars. Next worst: women, in SUVs, on the phone.
"What about in vehicle systems like OnStar?"
What about ordinary conversations with people in the car? There's even an extra distraction factor because you probably look at the person occasionally. What does this have to do with cell phones?
-- Moderation in all things, exceptions to all rules --
I've seen this argument a lot. Well, maybe not "drive like drunk", exactly, but there are piles of articles like this about how drivers using cell phones, even with hands-free setups, are worse drivers overally.
But what I don't see much difference in, and wish to be corrected if I'm wrong, is having a hands-free cell phone conversation while driving and having a conversation with someone in the car while driving.
because of course on cellphones, it's impposibe to say "I'm driving, so it might take me a second to answer."
Everyone has an anecdote. Here's mine.
Driving down to a science fiction convention in Colorado Springs a couple of weeks ago, we had a car parked in the passing lane at variable speeds. He almost caused one accident when someone cut in front of him to pass and he threw on the brakes and almost caused a pile-up. He never changed lanes no matter what, even after sort of unbelievable opportunities and suggestions (light flashing).
We coulnd't decide if he was drunk, or just an a-hole, until we did manage to pass him from the right lane. You guessed it already...on his cell phone.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
They're not holding a phone to their ear, but they are talking to someone over hands free. They are distracted, no doubt about that. It's good potential for hilarity just watching people nearly bumping into things while talking as they walk. I've noticed that those who are good at going aroung obstacles tend to have their eyes stuck wide open in some kind of automatic avoidance trance, or to slow down, or even stop.
I'm glad that the one concession people do tend to make to loss of concentration is a lower speed. But puh-lease folks, try to keep talking on a mobile phone in the car to making urgent calls, and keeping incoming social calls quick (or if it's going to take a while, and you have the option, swap drivers).
And whatever you do... never... EVER... let a drunk elderly person make social calls from the car while they're driving!
How long does it take a person to
realise that he needs to concentrate
on his driving, say "hang on" and
set a cell phone down? Let's presume
that a person can do so in a half a
second. If a car is moving at 60
miles per hour, that's 44 feet. I
assume that most accidents would turn
into near misses with another *three
car lengths*.
At 60 miles per hour, it takes about
11 milliseconds to go a foot. A person
on a phone will take a few feet's
worth of time to realize that he should
stop listening to the person talking on
the other end of the phone.
I've seen studies where tired drivers are more dangerous than drunk drivers too, and there's no possible way to make laws for that. Being on the road is dangerous, period. There are old drivers, cell-phone using drivers, tired drivers, drunk drivers, and just plain bad drivers. It all depends on the mix of people you get at that point in time.
carry a flyswatter in the front seat.. so you don't have to reach so far to swat the screaming kids.. trust me you only have to do this once.. (i'm not a kid but i used to be one)
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn695
lol, if you drink beer and watch TV 'they' are developing a
"digital mirror" promises to show you the damage a slobbish lifestyle will wreak on your face and physique
pfft, I don't have to move or eat anything but beer but apparantly for other ppl it will make you fat or ugly or whatever else happens to ppl that don't work 60 hrs a week and spend their free time on an excercise bicycle. Yes, I've been a slob for a lot more than 5 yrs...
actively be part of a conversation
So, if I'm having a conversation while driving, no cell phone involved, I'm drunk?
When I die, I'd like to die peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror, like the passenger in his car. - Jack Handy
Oooh, somebody said something that wasn't 1000% accurate or misspelled something. Oh nooo. Have you ever been in a concersation?
> I damn near rear-ended him and I had about
> 5 seconds between us. They car behined me
> almost hit me, etc.. It was damn near a
Y'know it's pretty much universal, in commom sense and in law, that rear-ending someone is always your fault. You were going too fast.
Dialectician. Archology.
Enquiring minds need to know.
While it would seem that reaction times are important, they unfortunately aren't. That's because both young and old have abysmally poor reaction times in actual driving circumstances. On freeways, most people do not react at all within 2 seconds of seeing a problem situation ahead. Young people are no better than old people.
I've seen teenagers drive full speed into another car when they had a full 5 seconds of time to react. I myself was struck from behind by - guess what - a teenager. I had been sitting at a red light for 10 seconds when she smashed into my car at 35 mph. Her passenger said that the driver was talking and when she saw my stopped car she threw her arms out (letting loose of the steering wheel) and screamed - typical young driver reaction: no avoidance, no attempt to stop.
IOW eliminating drivers because they are old is just scientifically wrong. In contrast eliminating young drivers is scientifically reasonable and is the best way to make our roads safer.
"Hands-free systems apparently don't help much either as they still require a driver to 'actively be part of a conversation."
.15, talking on a handheld mobile phone after 16 hours of no sleep.
And that's different from having a conversation with the person in the passenger seat HOW?
NEXT UP:
Studies suggest mothers driving screaming children home from school behave worse on the road than truck drivers with a BAC of
Because of the direct effects of careless driving on your partner: Less likely to speed or show off, less likely to drink and drive (built-in designated driver), etc. Another fairly common result of marriage, parenthood, also tends to make you more risk-averse. Marriage and children also lead to insanity, but than's another post.
This simply proves what I have told naysayers (anti celphone people) ages ago.. It has to do with carrying on a conversation (intelligent or not) with another person (or pet), some people just devote to much thought into the conversation and not the real task at hand...DRIVING SAFE. I know this from firsthand experience while talking about computers (what else is there?) my friend would get so into the conversation (debate) he would almost rear-end another vehicle. And this happens every time he drives!
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Schumacher has no problem gabbing on the radio durring 2-4 lateral G's. And how about all the Rally drivers who have to be involved in their conversations whilst hanging a wheel over a cliff... THIS STORY IS RUBBISH!!
I've sure seen people in their teens through 50s wearing sunglasses at night
I've done this to combat evil superbright SUV headlights. There's a reason we have high beams and low beams, ya know...
It happens everyday. I see women putting on makeup, driving down the freeway. I've seen men shaving w/ electric shavers too. People reading books... one buy had what looked like bungee cords holding the steering wheel, paperback in left handle, driving down the freeway.
I think he made the point that he was following the 5-second-rule. Oh yeah, he did. He also said that the guy in front was going 65, and so if he wasn't, he'd have to be in a different lane. It seems reasonable to assume that you're a jackass.
I'm 29, and I've just started learning to drive.
Now, I live in Dunedin, a small city in southern New Zealand. Here's what I've noticed:
L plates mean "target". If you see L-Plates, it's your goal to scare this person stupid, by tail-gating, passing within a handspan of their vehicle when there's a completely empty lane, or worse. Worse means that someone tail-gated me until a truck was within 120 meters, and then start to pass. The moron behind that moron decided to tail-gate me, while the first one was racing toward a truck. I had nowhere to go, I couldn't slow down, I couldn't pull over. She missed getting hit by the truck by bugger all distance, and missed me by inches.
Then there's the story about the Mercedes driver. She was passing me, because I wasn't doing 100km/h in a 70km/h zone on a greasy road. So she moves into the other lane, and plants her foot without waiting for her car to straighten up. After spinning around about 3 times, she parks her car 3 meters off the road in a hedge. We stopped, and she tried blaming ME for it - I wasn't speeding, and I had no interaction with her.
But there's more. A week later, I saw the same woman driving at 120 on the very same roads in a different Mercedes!
Now for what I've seen while on foot.
I crossed the road, stood in the lane for on-coming traffic facing said traffic, and the woman coming up behind me crossed 3 feet over into the lane I was in, stopped, drove around me, and screamed at me for being a hazard to her driving.
Another time, I was crossing with the lights in my favour. An older woman (maybe around 50?) ran the red light, and nearly hit me. I yelled at her, then turned back, took another step, and nearly got hit by another woman driving a second car, more than THREE seconds after the other woman.
Same area as above, I was walking along the foot path. Someone decided to cross the footpath doing 30km/h, missing me by inches.
One of my friends is a boy-racer. He pulled away from a car, going uphill at 75km/h (the limit here is 50km/h in a built-up area). He was pulled over by a cop, who asked him what he thought a reasonable speed was in a 50 km/h zone. My friend responded "55-65." He was lucky his car wasn't taken off him.
There's a steep local street in Dunedin, High Street. One half of the houses on the street are at (or below) street level. I saw one woman standing up in her car, as she was driving, using the steering wheel to hold herself up while doing her lipstick in the rear-vision mirror, while speeding downhill.
I'm not going to go into any great depth about the boy-racers in town, beyond saying they run red-lights, they'll charge at people on crossings, hurl bottles from moving vehicles.
SUV drivers are a complete fucking nightmare, too. One guy decides that, when the light changes, instead of giving way to the rush hour traffic through the main street, he'll charge right through in his 3,000 kg FWD. So, he plants his foot, and charges right at the pedestrians. It was his lucky day, though, and I was on the crossing. I stopped and stared at him until he stopped. No fuck is going to threaten me with being run down so they can get through. This one tried it, and ended up blocking all traffic off on the main street, while the pedestrians (with the right of way) crossed.
It's not my fault he broke the law and tried to run me down while I was halfway across the crossing. If I hadn't been there, he might have hit the two pre-teens who sprinted out without looking.
The final thing I'm going to say is that the local newspaper did a survey of drivers in all the main centres, and I'm told that Dunedin came out with the worst drivers in the country. It's a beautiful little town, but every driver here thinks they have the right of way, and most pedestrians step out without bothering to look. The schoolboys step out and give you the finger if you yell at them. If you visit here, take a taxi or the bus, but don't rent a car.
One can argue the point of weither or not a conversation is enough to distract a driver, but its clear that having both hands avaliable for driving improves the effort. A headset is better than holding the phone with one hand. Examples like Schumaker and Solberg are not valid points at all. I dont think anyone needs to explain why.
I'd just add this. Does this mean that everything someone does while talking on a cell phone is retarded? Does that mean if you are cooking while talking on a cell phone you are going to accidently kill yourself or fall face first into the oven? Does it mean that you might accidently choke on food because you're too stupid to eat while holding the phone up to your ear? How about walking? Will I walk retarded too - maybe wander into traffic?
"The nuances can sruvive text transmissions like email..."
Nuances have no chance to sruvive.
The parent comment may be correct, however I was under a different impression. I thought that accident rates for men and women were similar, but that womens insurance rates were lower because women are less likley to make a claim after being in an accident. This can be explained by the social misconceptions surrounding "women drivers", so that women are reluctant to make a claim and thus "reinforce" the stereotype.
"And, I am sorry....tobacco use is NOT more likely to kill me than the local nuclear power plant..."
If that were the case, wouldn't we see a lot of dead people from cancer and such (probably characteristic cancers, such as leukemia, etc) with specific geographic distributions?
The main difference is not in the size of the risk (the OP's quote is probably, but not certainly correct) but in who takes the risks. We take risks from eating, smoking, and driving on a daily basis. These are risks from which we derive a benefit, and which we actively chose to take. Risks from toxic waste and nuclear power plants may (or not) be small, but we derive no benefit from those risks and are not given choices as to whether to assume them. Smoking in public provides a risk to others (although, I would probably argue, a risk that can be dealt with better by other means than banning it) and thus irritates people a lot. People don't like taking risks for the benefit of others without their consent.
Statistics are fun and all, but we have to take the time to look at what generated the numbers behind them if we really want to understand why things happen.
We can have the best reasoning and statistical analysis skills in the world, and unless our underlying assumtions/facts are correct, our conclusions will be wrong every time...
In one of the examples cited by the parent post, the Woman driver (e.g. cutting off the driver in front) would be the cause of the accident in the eyes of many drivers, but unless it was bltatantly obvious, the other driver (often a man, statistically speaking) would be found at fault for following too closely.
Another case I see Women do much more often than Men (Elderly Men being the noteable exception) is make exceptionally slow turns, which can cause drivers who assume she's turning faster to slam right into her cars rear-end.
My Point: Many women who are piss-poor drivers may not be causes of accidents in the eyes of the law, but they are when it comes to common sense and reasonable driving practices.
I'm not saying men don't do dumb things while driving, but men are usually guilty of aggressive driving, where women who are bad drivers (and there are quite a few from what I've seen and heard) are more often simply careless/inattentive, a behavior often missed in traffic citations and accident reports, and therefore missed in statisics and the analysis of them.
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uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
I wonder when some study will look at cellphone related pedestrian-induced accidents. Have you ever been driving (while not talking on the phone) and had to concentrate extra hard to avoid hitting an oblivious pedestrian who was lost in some cellphone trance? I thought so.
Its not the phones that are distracting, its the fact that you are listening with only one ear. Unless you are deaf in one ear your brain is used to hearing with both ears. When the input is reduced to one ear you have to listen more closely to hear well. Couple that with the limited frequency domain (that charactaristic sound of a voice over the telephone), and you have to listen very closely, which takes your attention away from driving.
Hands-free sets are dumb, a good proportion of people drive with one hand anyway. The only system that helps is a speakerphone.
As a simple experiment, plug up one ear and try to have a conversation with someone, you'll notice you have to pay a heck of a lot more attention to the sounds in order to understand what is being said.
1.) Any assertion, no matter how incredulous, improbably, true, false, verifiable, unverifiable, supported, or unsupported, is a belief, not an opinion. Opinions are neither true nor false, and there is no such thing as evidence with regards to opinions.
2.) If you disbelieve anyone all assertions that aren't provided along with their evidence, you would be unable to function in the world. If your co-worker tells you that its raining out, you almost certainly believe them. If your boss tells you that your team is about to start a new project, you almost certainly believe them. In neither case did the person show you any evidence. Even scientists respect the validity of assertions without being presented with evidence; the knowledge that someone else asserts the validity of some result is sufficient in most cases. That's the whole point of peer review -- to avoid necessity of having to prove every result to every single concerned scientist individually.
If driving with a cell phone is legal and it's equivalent to driving drunk, let's write up some legislation that ties legalizes drunk driving and see how people like it. Oh, that's right, we can have it both ways.
Potentially worse than phone users, drunks and old people are the aggressive anti-social drivers in cars with more power than they can handle.
I could forgive someone who accidentally crashed into me, I'm not so sure about someone who did it while getting to the front of the queue at any cost.
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