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

Here is a practical test

[syntap]

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.

Why is this modded troll?

[ad0gg]

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.

"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

Re:Old People

[kannibal_klown]

Then you should see what I've had to deal with.

My favorite one was on a "Bingo" night...

I was at an intersection that also happened to be a railroad crossing (the pattern was like an astrix; 2 streets crossing at a right angle, with a railroad going through at 45 degrees). The train was coming through, so obviously both streets had the red light. When the train finally passed, it was me one 1 street, and a cadillac on the other.

My light turns green (that street always turns green after the train, and I had a witness to back me up). So I go, and almost get T-Boned by the cadillac full of elderly men and women. They got all angry and rolled down the windows to yell at the "young-en." Meanwhile, I turn my head and see that I was correct, I had the green and they had the red. There was no arguing with them, so I said to hell with it and drove off.

Even the other person in the car said we had the green, and the lights are so long at that intersection it's sickening... so it's not like it could have changed while they were yelling at us.

I have great respect for the elderly; my grandparents lived with me for most of my life (until I was 20). And I'm not saying all elderly are bad drivers as I've driven with some that were good, but there are a lot out there that aren't great at all, and god forbid anyone tell them that maybe they shouldn't be driving. The worst part is, they don't realize it and nobody in their family has "the heart" to say that it's dangerous for others when they're on the road.

Things I often witness
- A granny will just drift to the other lane even if someone's next to her. No turn signal either.

- Running a stop sign (not a rolling stop, but just go through like it was nothing).

- Flying (fast) through a parking lot, while not using the lanes. Just going through the parking spaces the entire length of the lot at like 25 MPH.

- STOP in the middle of a busy street for no reason so they can put on their glasses.