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?"

Comments

Difference

[NETHED]

Then what is the difference between talking to someone in your car, and talking to someone on a hands free headset.

Re:Difference

[david.given]

Because the other person in the car is exposed to the same environment you are, and you are aware of each other's body language. 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.

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.

Re:Difference

[American AC in Paris]

Talking to a passenger isn't as distracting as talking on the cellphone, but it is certainly more distracting than not talking to anybody.

A passenger is aware of the traffic situation. If you suddenly stop talking to a passenger, they'll look and see it is because a bunch of brake lights just came on up ahead, you need to pay attention to traffic, and the passenger should just sit quietly until it's smooth sailing again.

In a cell phone conversation, the person you're talking to has no awareness of what traffic conditions are like. You, the driver, could suddenly need to jam the brakes and swerve to avoid somebody drifting into your lane--and the person on the phone would just keep on chirping away about how "so anyway, then I said that there's no way my card is overdrawn because you paid those bills, right, and so..."

It may not command all of your attention, but in an emergency traffic situation, every slightest bit of attention that gets pulled away from the road can make the difference. A cell phone conversation can make the difference between missing that other guy's bumper by inches and getting clipped into an uncontrolled spin at 60 miles per hour.

Re:Difference

[Tackhead]

> Then what is the difference between talking to someone in your car, and talking to someone on a hands free headset.

I'll bite. "A combination of shared situational awareness and greatly increased audio bandwidth".

Shared situational awareness: If I'm talking to a driver and I see a hazard, I'll either STFU if it appears the driver has noticed the hazard, or I'll road hazard: tire fragment ahead on left mention it in midsentence if it looks like it's something out of the driver's field of view.

Increased audio bandwidth in meatspace relative to cellphonespace: When I'm talking to someone in meatspace, I'm getting a full uncompressed analog signal of that person's voice. Real easy for my brain to parse that into words, because that's what my ears evolved to receive, and what my brain evolved to parse.

When I'm talking on the cellphone, I'm getting the analog voice, downsampled to 8 KHz analog bandwidth for the POTS connection, and then digitized and recompressed to what sounds like a swishy watery-sounding MP3 at 16 Kb/s (with squelch/dropouts for near-silent bits of the conversation, to save the phone company even more bandwidth). Ugh.

Even off the road, my brain has to work a lot harder to reconstruct that into human speech than it does in meatspace. A fraction of a second pause, a few milliseconds of a breath that don't make it past the squelch, all of those things make a difference. Was that stunned silence? Was it "whoa?" [as in whoa, that's stupid], or was it "whoa!" [as in whoa, that's brilliant].

Our brains evolved to detect those nuances in meatspace speech. The nuances can sruvive text transmissions like email, because we've trained ourselves (unless we're insensitive clods!) to manually reinsert them. It all gets stripped out at downsampled, 16 KHz compressed audio, with bandwidth-saving squelch.

And that's why your driving-brain runs out of CPU cycles more quickly when talking on a cellphone than when talking to a passenger.

Re:Difference

[ivan256]

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.

Apparently you've never experienced small children in the back seat; a situation that can be as bad, or worse than a driver on the phone.

The real issue is not that people drive poorly when they're on the phone, the issue is that people are allowed to drive at all without better training and testing. Being slightly impared wouldn't be such a big deal if you could drive properly in the first place. Not only that, but if you were better trained and a better driver you would potentially be able to deal with the phone conversation in a way that wouldn't impair your driving.

Instead of driving test focusing on worthless crap like how many points you get on your license for passing a school bus, you should be forced to prove you can handle a variety of traffic situations, and you should have to get a perfect score. Once you've passed the test, traffic law enforcement needs to stop focusing on the easily prosecutable offences like speeding and start giving tickets for failure to signal, following too close, incorrect yielding of the right of way, blocking traffic because you never learned how to parallel park correctly, etc. Additionally, instead of just a vision test when you go to get your license renewed, you should have to prove that you retained some of those skills in order to retain permission to use the roads.

Taking the cell phones away from drivers is a symptom fix. We should attack the root of the problem.

Re:Old People

[damiangerous]

Because the AARP is one of the most powerful lobbying groups there is, and they fight tooth and nail against anything that even resembles competency testing.

Re:THIS AFFECTS YOUR CHILDREN!

[GuyMannDude]

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

Pull 'em over!

[Bluesman]

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.

Why Old People Rule

[handy_vandal]

If it is a proven scientific fact that old people drive like they are drunk, why are they allowd to drive?

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 ... a joke, I think, but that's how much driving meant to him.

-kgj

Re:Old People

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but high quality public transportation is bad for the auto industry.

Thats why Ford spent so much money lobbying to stop public transportation development in LA and Chicago.

Re:Old People

[pavon]

He is right, and the reason that they are such a strong lobbying group is because old people vote.

Politicians care about one thing more than any other - getting rellected. If you look at all the lobbying groups that are successfull it is for two reasons - they have a large influence on a large voting block, or they make large contributions to the politician's campain funds. One of these is mostly good, as it represents the (politically active) people through proxy (and in a populace this large, it is impossible to get attention any other way). The other is mostly bad, as it only represents the will of a few wealthy contributers. Not all lobbying is equal.

In this case it is simply democracy in action - the majority of voters think that old people should be allowed to drive, so they are.

Re:Old People

[Mr. Slippery]

If the doctor says you're not fit to drive your licence is taken away. There are periodic checkups, and they are mandatory.

Part of the problem is that here in the U.S., in many areas it is very difficult to live indepentently without a car. I don't just mean rural areas, I mean cities like my hometown of Baltimore with suck-ass mass transit. (Though some U.S. cities are great in this respect - I just got back from San Francisco with it's excellent Muni and BART systems.)

Take someone's licence away, and thanks to our automobile-centric planning they quite possibly can't even get to the grocery store anymore.

If the AARP was smart, they'd be lobbying for good public transportation - it would be a great benefit for senior citizens who can't drive safely.

A bit of research and reason show it to be BS

[PortHaven]

A rant...

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 .08, Strayer and colleague Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology, found during research conducted in 2003.

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.

-

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.

-

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

Re:Old People

[Sierpinski]

On a side note, people claim that restricting the elderly from driving is age discrimination. However, we already practice that by not allowing 13-year olds to drive. The restrictions need to focus less on age (although I don't disagree with the minimum age requirements) and more on driving ability. I've seen dozens of first-hand accounts of where some very old person got in an accident either because they had horrible reaction time, or just plain didn't see something that they should have seen easily.

There was a news-documentary a few years ago about this elderly guy wearing a neck brace. He was totally unable to move his head to the left, at all. The reporter was in the car with him, and he asked her to check left. She asked what he does when hes alone in the car, and he replied that he just listens and hopes for the best.

I also witnessed an elderly woman who was standing in front of me at the BMV line fail her eye test 14 times (I counted) before she finally passed. I took my eye test, filled out my paperwork, and started pulling out of my car before she even finished getting IN her car.

The problem is, no legislation will ever pass to restrict this, for two reasons:

1) Most of congress would probably fall into this category
2) The highest percent of voters is the elderly. They would never vote to have their own licenses put in jeopardy.

I see it a lot

[DustMagnet]

I'm amazed how more and more when I see someone driving like a drunk, they are on a cell phone. I'm not talking about 2 am when the streets are empty, since half the people look drunk at that time. Remember lack of sleep kills more people than drunk driving. I'm talking about people driving like drunks during rush hour!

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.

20 vs. 70

[GunFodder]

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?