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Gamers Better at Driving w/ Cell Phones?
sl4shd0rk writes "A lot of people think talking on the cell phone while driving is natural, but each time someone asks a question or changes the subject, it's like taking on a new task, Psychologists who study multi-tasking have argued for years about whether these "information bottlenecks" occur because people are inherently lazy, or because they have a fundamental inability to switch from one task to another. Mei-Ching Lien, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University. "Even with a seemingly simple task, structural cognitive limitations can prevent you from efficiently switching to a new task."
I have to say that the best ones are those who play a lot of video games," she pointed out. "Those are lab studies, however, and not driving tests." " All I know is that I could get where I was going better if I could shoot turtles at others on the highway.
. . . I play Quake. Wonder if this works for drunk driving, too :).
Well i know i used a mushroom to get into this pole position
Woohoo, I knew this skill would come in handy someday ;-)
Like a game! Fifty fifty chances you either crash or get a chance to live another day!:)
Heavily practicing tasks allows one to perform them better and with more consistency than people who have never tried!
Has it yet been considered that humans aren't necessarily BAD at multitasking, but we're plenty of capable of training ourselves to be better at it? You know, much like we are with almost everything else that is a learned behavior.
And a lot of people (including many gamers) think it is not natural.
GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE.
I talk about stuff.
All I know is that I could get where I was going better if I could shoot turtles at others on the highway.
:-D
Sure, but then the other cars will slow down or spin at your oil patches.
(For the people who wonder: Mario kart!)
Dependency hell? =>
Just because you're good with multitasking with your hands doesn't mean you're inherently better than other people at multitasking in a car. With one, there are no consequences for failure. When you're driving a car, serious injury or death is the result of failure.
It's just this kind of superiority BS by gamers that will get them killed in a car. There's a difference between games and real life.
Isen't this the reason why there are cars with TV and Xbox and/or Playstations?
I think driving with any kind of distraction will always make driving more dangerous, even hands-free kits, because you are trying to think about the conversation you are having whilst focusing on driving. Holding a phone up to your face might mean you lose the use of one your hands for driving, but it's what is going on that is taking you attention away.
Gamers are most probably more used to multitasking while doing activities, I can't count how many times I've had a conversation while play Gran Turismo 4 only to crash because of it, but as you do it more you get better.
Business Voyeur
Relatedly, and I know this is anecdotal, but I try to conscientiously observe the driver when I see someone make a mistake at an intersection (when it is safe for *me* to do so, such as when I'm already *STOPPED* and some bloody fool runs a stale yellow/red light from the lane next to me.) More often than not, they are talking on a cellphone. Or eating, or drinking.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I can multitask fine. I'm often doing 3-4 things at once (playing games while watching TV and talking on IM for example), but this is ridiclous and should NOT be encouraged. Almost every time I see a bad driver they're either talking on the phone or they're some asshole 20 year old with daddie's money paying for his new car, who just happens to have a death wish.
I don't care if you play games, play golf or play with yourself. You can't control a car with one hand (unless specially adapted), let alone control it with one hand while you focus on going "oh really? Yes? wow? cool!" over and over down a phone. If the call is THAT important then you can pull over and answer it, you'll take 5 minutes longer to get there but you arn't endangering my life.
I like muppets.
I know a lot of gamers who multitask incredibly poorly when playing games. There's a "zone" they get into, where distractions just don't get through - telephone, household pets, noise outside, a bomb in the next room, etc., none of it gets noticed.
Some folks might point out that a lot of modern games have in-game voice chat, but there's a key difference there - the players are generally talking about the game. So it's not really multitasking, it's just another piece of the single task they're involved in and focusing on.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
That's because the average person has no skills.
Most gamers on the other hand have like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills, etc...
Having such a large repertoire of skills, over the years gamers have had to learn better multitasking skills out of necessity (unless, of course, you have a sweet bike or a mustache).
Come on, are you typing this while driving?
How hard can it be to add an extra couple of characters?
You should not drink and drive.
Wait, what's this about phones?
I'll just say that it's normal to embrace enthusiastically any message that tells you you're better than most other people.
Wohoo! I'm normal now!
I'm a hardcore gamer like everyone else on Slashdot. I was on the cell phone and got hit for $7000 damage a couple of months ago. It was my fault. I'm very lucky there were no injuries on either side. Gamers don't have super powers.
I've read about studies (cant reproduce them, sorry, but they sounded reasonable) that when something unexpected happens, the reaction between ppl on the phone and normal people is basically identical. People just drop the phone (literally) and do what they have to do. Also reaction times are pretty equal, and people don't really swerve etc.
Things that ARE dangerous are things like trying to operate a complex(ish) thing like a car stereo, GPS navigator, audio players etc.
So imagine my surprise when I heard that a lot of people SMS with phones while driving.. now peering at a tiny screen while driving is a BAD idea.
Perhaps all driver license tests should include a multitasking reaction time test. The person would have to listen to and correctly answer questions about driving (i.e., a voice response version of the written part of the driver's test) while taking a simulated driving test that checks reaction time and the ability to multitask. You would have to both drive safely AND verbally answer the questions correctly. Those who pass both halves of the test get a license to use a cellphone whilst driving and those that don't don't. Retaking this test every 10 years would help deal with any age-related cognitive declines.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Yeah, it reminds me of a joke about ultra male English drivers.
I break the speed limit, tailgate and drive after 3 pints. But it's ok, because I'm a good driver with a very fast car.
Testosterone poisoning I call it.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Honestly, how is talking on a cell phone much more distracting than talking to a passenger in your car? Other than the obvious difference that you don't have a small piece of electronics held tightly to your ear, that is.
All I know is that I could get where I was going better if I could shoot turtles at others on the highway. ...and if you could respawn three cars back when you drove off the edge of something...
Sure they can.
Can they learn to drive faster than the speed limit, safely? Sure they can.
Can they learn to drive safely while intoxicated? Sure they can. (think, drive slower, etc)
Does that mean we should encourage these things? Of course not.
The fact is, most people think they are better than average drivers. Given that you are piloting a few thousand pounds of steel and gasoline around, your focus should primarily be on doing that safely, not on doing your makeup/talking on the phone/rolling that joint/whatever.
...that this is illegal in the UK. I still see people on phones when driving and there is no way they can give attention to both the call and the road. If I'm at a pedestrian crossing I'll give drivers a wide berth if they're on the phone - all too often they'll just sail through a red light.
In all honesty, I don't like surveys like this as they seem to justify to some people that they are superhuman and do have the ability to do things that are just plain dangerous. Sure, some people may be able to drive and phone, but it's clear that you're obviously not giving the road 100% attention. It's not like there's a video chip and a sound chip in there and they work independently. People also have the ability to over-estimate their own skills and cause problems for others - drink driving for example. So for the love of God if you're in the UK, don't start using your phone just because you're a gamer...
Also a quick point; to those people who have hands-free headsets. It does not help if you do not wear them, then fumble to put on the sodding thing when a call comes in! That's just as dangerous, especially if - like they guy I saw drive into a tree at 30 mph - you were under the dash getting it out of the glovebox...
Meh. I've got a dual core brain. Multitasking is baby food.
Watch me chew gum and walk.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
"Mei-Ching Lien, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University."
Is she hot?
Gamers Better at Driving w/ Cell Phones?
"Those are lab studies, however, and not driving tests."
Wow.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
in good old germany, it is illegalusing your cellphone while in the driver's seat as long as your engine is running. unless you have a free talking thingie, like a headset or similar. no fiddling with the buttons, otherwise its 40 fine . and that's a good thing (TM) as far as i'm concerned.
Let's face it, some people are just better driver with or without cell phones.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Gamers, especially hardcore gamers, use a lot of such implicit memory, because they are required to play those games where lightning-quick reactions are required (just look at the speed at which you have to react in Soul Calibur III to do a "just ukemi", for example). We are more used to using "that" part of our brain, the one where we have to do things unconsciously, and quickly. So, we should theoretically have much less trouble integrating "cell-phone talking" in our driving skills.
I'm not saying that people that can't handle talking on a cell phone and driving are n0obs that shouldn't be allowed to drive in the first place, but it's really not that much of a big deal. Keep the phone at hand, use an earphone/microphone set, and raise your awareness level when you're driving AND talking, don't get caught up in the conversation too much.
Now I tuned my car to the max stripping all the boring bits off like roof, lights etc and powerslide my way around corners at 200 miles per hour (grand prix legends) but do you think that is tolerated? NOooooo. I guess the police here is still pissed they had to give up their porches and take it out on anyone who think the speed limit is meant to be a minimum.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Give me an FPS and I'll headshot you with freakish reaction time. Give me a car and cell phone and I will kill your dog.
Unfortunately, like most people, you've got completely the wrong idea of why driving while using a mobile phone is dangerous. At this point, I'd like to pause for a moment to thank the UK government for introducing legislation attacking the wrong problem, and thus giving millions of drivers a false sense of security when they're using a hands-free kit.
In fact, if you look at the studies done in the UK and elsewhere before the explicit ban was introduced in the UK, the big problem is the loss of concentration. The physical incapacity caused by tying up one hand obviously doesn't help, but it makes far, far less of a difference to road safety.
The reason that talking on a phone isn't like talking to a person next to you is that a person next to you will sense when you need to concentrate, because they can see that you're approaching a hazard for example, and they'll shut up and not distract you while you navigate around the hazard. Someone you're talking to on a phone can't do that, and will change the subject, ask you a question, or otherwise attract your attention just as much when you're approaching a potential danger as when you're driving on an open road without another car in sight. Whether you're holding a little box near your ear or listening to someone through a speaker doesn't affect this at all.
If the UK government really wanted to improve the level of road safety rather than score cheap political points, they would have banned all mobile phone use while driving. Then again, the whole idea of such a specific offence seems a bit redundant when you already have legislation making dangerous driving illegal in general. Presumably someone thought it would draw more attention to the specific and increasing problem, or they were just after the political points.
In summary, this is wrong:
For most people, you simply don't need to use a phone while driving, period. If you want to talk to someone elsewhere while on the move, get someone else to drive. Doing anything less will dramatically increase your risk of having an accident, as surely as driving while drunk, tired or stoned.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
For the record, I am only a 20 year old college kid, but I can say this from experience with some of my friends:
Most people who drive horribly while they are on the phone, don't drive much (if any) better when they are not on the phone.
It really is a matter of how well can you drive to begin with, and I have seen much worse than talking on the phone while driving, such as girls doing their make up, guys shaving (it was an electric razor, but still), people reading the paper, watching movies (which was kind of nice when I was stuck behind them with their nice big LCD, but I digress) Some people can walk and chew gum, some people can walk, chew gum, talk on the phone and fold origami, and some people try to and walk into something. Now take that and replace "chew gum" with "drive".
Games may help develop hand eye coordination and reaction speed, but if you can't multitask you can't multitask.
Oh, and to you people who insist on saying you need two hands to drive: That's your problem. It is very rare for me to drive with both hands on the steering wheel unless I'm racing someone, even driving a stick shift.
Then their is motor cycle riding course. How do you communicate with your instructor? Two way radio. This in a vehicle that requires and extra task namely of keeping upright. With the extra handicap that by the difinition of driving instruction that you are not very good at it yet.
Police motor cycle cops also use two way radio to communicate during high speed pursuits.
So basically a lot of people drive and talk at the same time. From trained proffesionals who should know about road safety to the most elite drivers in the world to newbies.
Personally I think it depends on the person. I seen people drive that shouldn't be allowed to even if their eyes were glued to the windscreen and others who can do a myriad of tasks and still be full aware of everything on the road and more important perhaps, the side of the road. If you ever road shotgun on a truck in the innercity you will know how important it is to keep track of kids playing in gardens. Trucks seem to have a magnetic field that pulls everyone in.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you read the article, the article describes how the lab experiment is simply about people who had to recognize specific colors and shapes. It was easy when someone had to simply declare the color they saw. But it took more time to recognise both the color and shape of an object. The experiment simply measured when you had two factors to worry about, it took more time for your brain to process and respond.
And somehow they take the fantastic leap from a lab experiment involving shapes to cell phone usage in cars? Give me a break! There is a very thin thread which might link those two facts, but again it's thin. The fact that the scientist said that smells of either an over eager or political scientist trying to get their name in the papers.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
There was an episode that was done a while that addressed this same problem. They had a gentleman from the DMV perform a driving test. Two of them had to take the test as a baaseline.Things like driving through pylons, and accelerating and stopping. All of these were low speed tests. They then did the test on their cell phones. They had to answer a bunch of different questiions, like "What colour is your hair, ' other questions to see if they could understand a series of questions. And different sets of demands on the phone. They then had to do the test again, but drunk. They had a couple of cops, doing a brythaliser test. They flunked both road test preatty mush the same. They were surpisred that the phone and the alcohol would affect them the same way. Of course lots of people would say ' well there isnt enough data to make that work.' But that is a good way to start. If you were to test 100 people in the same manner, I think that it would be surprisig. Shaggy
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
Being ADHD, the more stimulation I have e.g. cell phone and radio. I am more at ease while I drive. No radio and cell phone I am all over the road and fidgety. Look string!!!
I know for certain that I'm better at emergency situation driving (like fishtailing on ice, or people pulling out in front of me, etc) because of driving video games like Need For Speed. At 100 mph sliding, skidding, or objects appearing out of nowhere in your path is typical, and you learn to respond instantly to such situations. I'm a better driver because of driving video games.
I kill harmless processes for sport
I *hate* cell phones. I wish we could un-invent them. Actually, if you could only call out to 911 on them and not receive calls, that would be perfect. I don't know about others, but the reason I'm almost compelled to answer a cell phone is that if I don't, they'll leave a message, and it's even more fucking annoying to check voicemail than to talk to them in fucking person.
First of all it alerts you right away when they leave a message, and if you silence the alert, you'll have no other notification that you have a message, so you'll forget later when you're free to check the message that you even have a fucking message. If you don't silence the alert, it alerts you every 18.3 fucking seconds and wears out your battery (I leave my cell on vibrate all the time because I can't stand fucking cell phone rings).
Secondly, when checking voicemail, it takes an extra 30 fucking seconds just to get to the first fucking message.
Third, it's either a message from my wife wanting to know if I'm on my way home yet (yes honey, that's me pulling into the fucking driveway), or a message from someone I already left a fucking message with asking me to call them back -- telephone tag, which annoys the fuck out of me.
Finally, if I don't answer the phone and it's my boss or a customer who needs to talk to someone, I always hear about it later, that they provide the phones for us as a fucking priviledge, and we should kiss their feet for the opportunity to talk on a cell phone while driving. The job is otherwise good, but I really fucking hate the cell phone part.
So, luckily I do most of my driving at 65 mph down an interstate in the middle of 3 lanes and I don't have to think about changing lanes, red lights, parking, etc., so I generally just answer the damned phone if I'm in that situation. People who drive around downtown traffic with their cell, well that scares me.
Here's how I'd fix it (other than banning cell phones period)... I should be able to quickly (toggle switch) change the phone to "driving mode", and the voicemail message should say, "The person you are trying to reach is currently driving a car and really can't talk to you, and prefers not to use some cackling antiquated crappy nextel voice service that will inevitable drop out 10 times during our fucking conversation, and doesn't even want to get a message from you for that matter. He would prefer if you got with the new millenium and sent him a fucking email that he checks more often than his fucking annoying fucking voicemail, and can respond to in a safe and calm environment without hearing your nagging fucking voice."
Actually I think I'm just going to set that as my new answer message for all incoming calls...
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
"For one, the social interaction habits tend to make the driver want to look at the other speaker. A cell phone does not."
Clearly, to make such a bold assertion, you must have a body of evidence to support you. Obviously some heretofore unknown portion of the fossil record indicates that as Homo Sapiens were evolving, cellphones were growing on baobab trees, and so our brains learned to make distinctions based upon whether or not we're talking on the cellphone.
It is possible to talk on the phone and drive. The trick is simple: you must make concentrating on the road your priority. What I mean is this: you must actively THINK that you are driving. Talking on the cell becomes of much lesser priority. If something interrupts your normal driving pattern just drop the phone instantly, just put 100% of all your capacities to the road. For example if someone cuts you off too damn close, you must act as if there is no cell phone in your hand. I admit, sometimes I drive that way. Of-course I prefer not to be on the phone while driving, but you can't do much about it. We spend too much time driving, there is no surprise that people talk on the phone, this is inevitable.
Unfortunately almost all people don't do it that way. For some strange reason they concentrate on the phone call and view their driving as the secondary task. This leads to accidents. Probably everyone who drives (myself included,) have witnessed someone doing something incredibly stupid while on the phone.
I actually think talking on the phone while driving should become part of the driving test. We can't stop people from talking on the phone. Really. They will use hands-free devices and no police will be able to enforce a law like that. So we must TEACH people to do it right. Part of the course and exam must include a person calling the driver, while the teacher/examiner observe the driver's behaviour. The driver must learn to pay 95% of his attention to the road, to observe the traffic laws AND follow them and to drive in real traffic conditions without endangering the rest of the world by their behaviour. They should be taught to drop the phone conversation instantly, I mean in a hundred of a millisecond and completely concentrate on the road if they feel that a dangerous situation is coming up. But this will probably prohibit many people from driving at all, but you know what? Then you should have an extra configuration in your driver's license: Did not pass drive while talking exam. The penalties for driving and talking and causing an accident should be extra-severe for these people.
I had an accident about 4 years ago (and no, I wasn't on the phone,) a fender-bender. Also I spun out of control once (I behaved stupidely, made a very sharp turn at a very high velocity) didn't hit anything but after a 270 turn both rear wheels went into a ditch. After these 2 incidents I have developed some kind of a reflex, when I stop paying attention to the road for even a millisecond, a scene plays in my mind: I FEEL like I am crashing into something HARD. I feel it with every cell in my body and it forces me to start paying fullest attention again. I am telling you, this feeling prevented me from doing quite a few stupid things and probably from a few accidents (I almost never go with the speed limit though, I always go at least 25% faster.) But you can't develop this reflex from instructions, unfortunately you have to go through bad things a couple of times to have it automatically. It's unpleasant to feel this, but if it saves me from an accident I am just glad that I have it.
You can't handle the truth.
The thing is - most of those cases the driver is talking about something fairly related to the situation he needs to concentrate on.
;).
Not something totally unrelated.
The cop probably looking at the vehicle he's chasing, describing it, saying where it's going. I'd find that not so hard to do that myself.
He's not trying to think of whether his girlfriend's maroon skirt (gf: "Not the red one, _maroon_") will go fine with her new top, or whether what he says next will get him in trouble with her...
As for F1 drivers, they are drivers who are highly coordinated and can probably multitask and drive at highspeeds. At least the top ones should be able to practically drive around tracks in their sleep
Apparently when the F1 racers were made to race in go-karts years ago, Ayrton Senna apparently was driving whilst tweaking the fuel-air mix on his kart's engine at the same time.
Rally drivers might even better at these sort of situations.
I'm actually of the belief that hands-free phones are more dangerous than holding the physical phone in your hand. I'd love to see some studies done on this...
For me personally, at least, I find myself more distracted on the hands-free phone. I have a theory why this is the case, too. See, when I've got one hand on the wheel, (which is how I prefer to drive, whether I'm on the phone or not), and I've got my phone in the other hand, the fact that I've got one "task" in each hand I think makes it mentally easier for me to feel like I'm multitasking.
That is, speaking into my right hand is one task, and steering with my left hand is the other task. By contrast, when I use hands-free, there's no physical representation of the second task, the conversation I'm having, and I've actually observed that this tends to be a distraction to me on the road, whereas I've never really observed my "in-the-hand" cellphone conversations to distract me to any noticeable extent. I think psychologically humans have a more difficult time multitasking when there's not a simple physical representation of the tasks.
Of course, there are some situations in driving where talking in ANY form is too much of a distraction, like when you're making a difficult merge or shifting lanes through heavy traffic, etc. In those situations I put the phone down, just the same as I would pause my conversation with the passenger sitting next to me.
I think, for people who normally drive with two hands, holding a phone in their other hand is, obviously, going to hinder their driving performance. This is a no-brainer. But for those who can drive comfortably with one hand, the danger is that they become mentally distracted, and I think taking the physical phone out of their hand actually increases this danger rather than decreasing it.
Like I said, though, I'd like to see some studies on this topic, since many states are passing laws that make only hands-free phones legal. I know there have been studies showing that hands-free is no safer than in-the-hand, but I'd like to see some studies addressing the question of whether hands-free is actually more dangerous than in-the-hand. I think the results might surprise some people.
"If your mommy talks on the phone while she's driving
She doesn't love you very much"
The 'telephone' part is the problem, in my experience.
I've driven while conversing on CB and ham radio, both in a car and on a motorcycle, without any real problem or disruptive diversion of attention. I've also tried to have a brief conversation on a normal handheld cell phone, and scared myself badly at just how disrupted my normal driving skills were when I was doing it, even at low speeds.
IMO, the problem is a dangerous separation of 'psychological spaces', something you can't afford when you're driving. Talking on the phone means conversing within an isolated 'space' and focusing on the voice you're hearing in one ear. The fact that your voice is replicated within that space so you'll control your voice amplitude makes the isolation more complete. That's normal for talking on a telephone, and focusing on that isolated sound source is something we've all learned to do well, but when you're driving you can't afford to do that.
The solution, at least in my case, is to put the conversation in the driving space, using a hands-free cradle for the cell phone. The speaker within the cradle is loud enough to put the other party's voice in the car's cabin at a conversational volume, just as if it was a voice coming in on the radio, and a ceiling-mounted microphone picks up my normally-spoken responses, less obtrusively than if I was using a push-to-talk mike. This brings the conversation into the driving space where it belongs, to compete for attention along with all the sounds of the road and the other people in the vehicle. When something important shows up, you can ignore the phone conversation long enough to deal with it, no problem. More important, your attention is not refocused away from the driving environment to that conversation in one ear, so you're not having to context-switch between that and driving, and that saves you seconds of focused response time, and maybe lives.
Since they seem to be finding more and more to determine you are a better driver (I just saw on the news they have studied how your houses proximity to a church makes you a better driver)......... Maybe a "gamers are better drivers" will finally even out the male:female insurance costs (sure, more males get DWIs and stuff, but why the hell do I have to pay for it when I don't even drink?)
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Most people who drive horribly while they are on the phone, don't drive much (if any) better when they are not on the phone.
Yes, and most of them think they're great drivers. Come to think of it, they're a lot like you.
Is talking to the passenger a serious distraction when driving? Has anyone ever studied this? Why would it be different from talking on a phone. Not to mention, eating, changing your CD or fiddling with the AC/heater.
Oh great. So when a gamer is multitasking on the road and plows into a pedestrian or a bicyclist, instead of saying
"watch where you're going, @$$!"
he says
"stfu n00b! pwned!"
and when he goes to jail for manslaughter, the judge is like
"gl hf! rotflmao!"
The study doesn't mention that the gamers are also much more prone to driving as if they were in the video game. So, while the driving against oncoming traffic might not be the result of cell phone distraction and was an intentional tactical move, the fact of the matter is the car is still in the wrong lane!
In Vino Veritas
Maybe the reason government is over-intrusive is that so many people have forgotten personal responsibility, and ruined it for the rest of us.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
From my ammature observations, it's not talking on the cell phone that makes people poor drivers. It's that their right (or left) hand is occupied holding the thing up to their head.
:)
People are distracted all the time while driving. Whether they are talking to the passenger, listening to the radio, thinking about their upcoming meeting, or whatever. I cannot imagine how *talking* on the phone contributes to any more accidents than *talking* to your passenger.
However, all the time I am seeing people making extra-wide turns because they choose not to put the phone down to give them extra grip on the wheel. Or they aren't looking around them because they choose not to temporarily take the phone off their ear.
I would love to see tests comparing a baseline driver to a) someone talking to a passenger, b) someone holding/talking on a cell phone, c) someone on a cell phone but with a headset, d) someone moderately drunk, e) someone adjusting console settings (stereo, climate, etc), and just for fun f) someone surrounded by risque billboards.
Then let's publish the methodology and results, and end this argument once and for all.
-David
Hmmmm... gamers are predominantly young males.
And the people with the highest serious accident rates are... young male drivers.
You are not multitasking, you are task switching. You cannot possibly be reading an IM and, at the same instant, _watching_ television, even if you're doing it on the same screen. Not Possible, Not even in principle.
.max
Sorry, but you're not specially-abled.
In the airlines in the US, the flying duties of the crew are rather strictly divided into the "Flying Pilot" and the "Non-flying Pilot" (FP and NP for short). In essence, the FP is responsible for making sure the airplane is pointed and powered correctly, and the NP is responsible for everything else, INCLUDING RADIO COMMUNICATION. Most airline pilots I have met are quite good at multi-tasking (or they would not be here), but just because you CAN do something, if necessary, doesn't mean you SHOULD. When the consequences of failure involve the wounding/deaths of other people, SOP should be to avoid multi-tasking whenever possible. Unfortunately, people will bitch and moan about the airlines not doing everything in creation to assure their saftey, while driving 30+ in excess of the speed limit while yapping on a phone.
In addition, it has been shown that multi-tasking requires so much focus that extremely vital clues to the bigger picture are missed. There is a classic old film short shown in airline training, where a group of 6 people, 3 dressed in white and 3 dressed in black, are shown, bouncing and tossing two basketballs around. You are told to count the number of times a ball is bounced (not tossed) from one white clothed person to another. The film then starts moving. It is actually a complex task, because not only do you have two balls to watch, you have to carefully note whether it came from and then goes to a white team member. This film goes for about 30 seconds. At the end, every one is asked as to how many ball-bounces between whites they counted. Most of the time, the answers agree within +/-2 out of 10. Occasionally, one person asks, "But what about the gorilla?!?"
You see, the most amazing thing is, that while these 6 people are bouncing balls around, a guy dressed in a gorilla suit walks into the frame, stands in the middle of all the action, WAVES AT THE FRIGGIN' CAMERA, and walks off the other side. ALMOST NOBODY SEES HIM. Everyone is so intent on counting those bouncing balls that they don't see anything else at all. It is hard to belive how you would fall for this, so they replay the film. And there is the gorilla, plain as day. It is meant to show why it is important to carefully divide up responsibilites so that you don't become so focused on task that you miss the waving gorilla... or the approaching mountains, or the depleteing fuel, etc., etc.
Back to cars, if nothing ever went wrong, driving and yapping would not be such a big deal. But a large number of car accidents are based on recognizing a developing situation rapidly, and the biggest thing that goes with multi-tasking is situational awareness. Can you get away with it most of the time? Sure. But 4000 people a month in the US croak in car accidents - more in a year than all the aviation accidents in history combined (plus all terrorist attacks combined as well). So I think people should treat driving as the serious responsibility that it is and STOP YAPPING ON PHONES WHILE DRIVING. If you don't have the maturity level to realize why you should leave a safety margin between the load on and the maximum level of your capabilities when driving a car, you SHOULDN'T BE DRIVING.
Ahh .. this is almost like trying to discuss abortion or gun registration / control laws.
.. 16 year old just got drivers license. Might be ass-kick at GTA or some shit, who cares.
I did read TFA, and in my opinion it is subjective at best. It was not a driving test. Some one who testes out OK might freak out when push comes to shove (in a real car in true danger) and their neck is on the line. Now my bias would be of the hang up and drive side of things. I hate cell phones (not technically just as to the culture that they have spawned in us humans). It also fits into our driving behavior (very selfish and self centered.) Now I don't expect anything to change, it will only get worse. Just the way it is.
There are going to be plenty of people who believe they can talk (on the phone) and drive. Now does this take into account if they can drive worth a crap in the first place ?? The premises that a 'gamer' would be better at this is BS. Example
This gets down to values, If you are a real good driver with the finest of multitasking skills and you feel you are good enough to do both so be it. I am only saying that one will drive better with out the distraction. Now maybe we are talking about driving good enough to get the job done... humm
Lets say that a blood vessel just burst in your head and you are rushed to the hospital and immediately taken to surgery. The chief brain surgeon has got your head sawed open, a few clamps on a few things and rig ring, he answers the phone because he is good enough
All I know is that I could get where I was going better if I could shoot turtles at others on the highway.
That's turtle shells. Live turtles don't slide nearly as well. Trust me.
Driving while intoxicated makes me a 'better' driver. When I'm sober, I speed like a maniac (according to most people), and generally disregard all sorts of traffic laws because I can still drive saely while doing it (most people would disagree because they think there's no such thing as some people having driving skills superior to anyone else to be able to handle higher speeds and more complex maneuvers).
When I'm intoxicated, I know I don't have the reaction times and judgment to drive like I normally do (however I still have superior reaction times and judgment than certain people who we consider ok to drive: see very old people), combined with the fear of getting pulled over and getting a DUI. With these factors, I drive the speed limit, look at every move slowly and carefully, and generally precisely follow every traffic law. So I would contend that this kind of compensation makes the risk of an accident equal to my sober driving, which is in fact low (I've been driving in that agressive manner for over 7 years without so much as a fender bender).
I'm sure this will be modded into oblivion because when it comes to driving people get up in arms over the idea that some peoples driving skills enable them to drive more agressively and quickly with the same low risk of accidents as normal people driving normally. Driving ability involves factors such as reaction time, ability to handle your vehicle (and your vehicles capabilities), ability to track other vehicles movements, and ability to observe what other drivers are specifically doing and the ability to analyze the traffic situation as a whole in order to predict the actions of these drivers. And guess what, some people can do all of those things better than others.
So go ahead and mod me down for having the audacity to suggest that I have better spatial and predictive ability than average, since you all think there's no way I can know that. I'm just so sick of people who think that just because most people incorrectly think they are better than average drivers means that everyone who thinks so are wrong. And I don't see why acknowledging your superior skill is wrong, certainly you people on slashdot have no qualms acknowleding how superior your computer knowledge, intelligence, and coding skills are compared to normal people. Why must we pretend like driving skills can't be better?
In spite of my skills as a gamer, I could not manage to free my car from train tracks and saw Twisted Metal in real life, as my car now lies in a scrap yard. All of this could have been prevented had I had a cell phone.
Like my sibling poster commented, your passenger reacts to your environment as you do. However, another important problem is the communication itself. Depending on who you talk to, most communication is 20-30% nonverbal. When you talk on the phone, you try to make up for this with more words and different inflections. Essentially, you try to make up for the lack of a face and hands by variations of voice.
Don't believe me? The next time you're talking with a friend, just tell them "bye" in the middle of a conversation, wave and walk away. They'll be a bit miffed/confused, but with the wave and you moving away they get the idea, especially if you have a stern look on your face implying anger. Contrast this to phone conversations. How many times have you said "bye" to each other on the same phone conversation, waiting for someone to hang up first?
-- I have fans? Wow.
The frame rate is so much better!
"Attention Deficit" is classified as a disorder by some. Not having it myself, I often think I a have trouble with the modern world - I like to focus on single tasks instead of being distracted and interrupted all the time.
I sense that this is one of those researchers that wants to classify ADD as a functional adaptation to post-modern life, rather than a disorder. Those with an *in*ability to "multitask" (ie, manage distractions) are the ones with the disorder.
Except that it is. See this report, for example. From the executive summary:
Or consider the reports behind this BBC article:
Those were just a couple of links from the first page on Google, BTW.
It's easy to assume that the physical problems are the major contributory factor to road safety, and this is the problem with false-security legislation such as that recently introduced in the UK. However, the reality acknowledged by several proper studies says otherwise. It's easy to go into denial about this counter-intuitive result, particularly if you're a driver who does use a mobile phone on the road trying to justify your actions, but the results are about as clear as you ever get: driving while using a mobile phone is comparable to driving while drunk, and using a hands-free kit does not make much of a difference.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
As others have mentioned, when you're driving, you're taking control of a weapon. Even a small amount of carelessness when driving can kill one or more people. I find it mind-boggling how so many people have become anesthetized to the fact that they're actually driving a vehicle. Automatic transmissions, cush interiors, shock absorbtion that cushions the road, and other modern enhancements to automobiles make people remove the sense of inherent danger that makes people pay attention.
It's great that cars are safer and more comfortable than they used to be, but the number of near-accidents I see on a daily basis makes me think that we'd better hurry up with self-driving automobiles. The actual driving part of driving a car has become so secondary that we may as well remove it from human control altogether.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Your proposed experiment utterly fails to address the issue of whether or not the distraction posed by engaging in a telephone conversation is less distracting than a conversation in person.
The point you're missing here is that distraction != head movement.
Don't you kill cops in that game? "Oh yeah, officer, did you ever play Drug Wars? No, I mean the old version, where you actually get automatic weaapons. You can kill the cops and get away with trafficking drugs."
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
Well, I'm not here to flame you. Many roads just require a high level of competency, but there are still a ton of drivers who will not learn a specialized manuever unless it is required. The real problem with a group of excellent drivers is that there is little room for mistakes. If everyone maintains tight following distances, drives fast around corners etc, you can't make a last second lane switch. Of course this is usually more a problem with the roads, but that wont stop others from blaming you.
So I guess to answer your question: highly congested areas are bad for any level of driving expertise. That problem aside, there are so many people who think that unless you are a professional in something your trips away from the norm are dangerous, malicious, and unfeeling.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
he shot those wolverines with a friggin' 12 gauge...GOSH!
And how would the cops know which license you have? Do the cops pull over everybody with a cel phone, because they might have the lower license? Or let everybody drive with cel phones, because they might have the higher license? (You can't just key it off license plate, because cars are shared between drivers with different licenses.)
... what? You get off easier?
If the cops never pull over anybody for talking on a cel phone, the only value is after-the-fact: if you kill somebody while talking on the phone, and you had a cel phone license, then
Nope. We already have laws against driving while distracted, or reckless driving. If you kill somebody with a gun, it doesn't matter that you were licensed to own and use the gun, and expertly trained in its use: you still killed somebody, and are held responsible for that. So it has no after-the-fact value: if you caused a wreck, you're responsible.
The only way it can have before-the-fact value it has is if the cops pull over everybody chatting on the phone. Still sound like a license you'd want to have? Would this be feasible for any police force to implement?
So while it may sound like fun to have a super-license that lets you get away with what other people can't, I can't imagine how it would ever work.
I just find I get places slower when I am on the phone, since I have to take attention away from constantly scanning for cops. So really I am not paying any less attention to driving, just replacing one task with another. I don't use the phone much in the car though because I feel like I am crawling if I drive the speed limit. See you on the highway (briefly). :)
Much scarier than talking on the cell phone is when I get to work or home and do not remember the drive at all, total autopilot. When I had a two hour commute it was pretty much every day.
I do not know if video games make me a better driver, but I do know video games have made me a much more aggressive driver. I never used to powerslide into oncoming traffic or shoot at cops before playing GTA.
It's only ok to talk on the phone while driving if it's your former driver's ed teacher.
Here's my (Libertarian) take. People should have freedom, but be responsible about it. This means two things. One, the government shouldn't get involved and regulate cell phone use while driving. But two, people should have enough responsibility to never use cell phones while driving, unless it's an emergency.
I'm a Libertarian, and I have no problem with the government prohibiting cell phone usage in cars, for the same reason I have no problem with them prohibiting drinking alcolohic beverages while driving.
Besides, I can't imagine an emergency so serious that you can't hand the call to a fellow passenger, or pull over for 30 seconds. If something is dangerous to do, it's no less dangerous to do during an "emergency". And by using it during an emergency, you're saying that your emergency is more important than other people's lives. Even ambulance drivers don't break the speed limit, because that could cause *another* accident, and they're trying to make things better, not worse.
A car is a device that, when not handled properly, can kill people. A loaded gun shares the same property. While I agree 100% that people should have the right to own a gun, I would not want to allow somebody to walk into a government-maintained building (say, a courtroom), waving a gun around, while talking on a cell phone. I'm all for personal responsibility and minimal government involvement, but at some point, it's just dumb: there can be no significant benefit from the government allowing you to do this on their property. If you take your gun out of its holster in the capitol building, being responsible *means* not doing something distracting; if you start doing something else distracting, you're not being responsible, full stop.
Same with a car: if you want to drive it, being responsible demands not doing something distracting like using a cell phone, or doing tequila shots.
I suppose if I was a truly hardcore libertarian, I'd allow waving a loaded gun at somebody while being distracted, so long as the gun didn't go off. Or doing tequila shots while driving as long as you didn't hit anybody. But I don't judge everything purely by the harm's principle: I consider something that dangerous to need a law against it to "insure domestic Tranquility".
Please let us stop this nonsense now. It reminds me of an associate of mine who claims that he's become good a drunk driving because he does it so much. Everytime some nimrod cuts me off in traffic, I can be certain to find a cell phone plasterd to his\her head. Listen carefully kiddies: Yakkng kills. As someone else noted eloquently above, STFU AND DRIVE!
You are totally blocking my view of the wall. - Dogbert
I play Burnout Revenge. I won't hit anyone *looks innocent*.
I still guess I just don't get it. Now I understand the whole 'hands free' argument. If you are leaning your neck over or using a hand to use a cell phone
in a car in makes sense that it can contribute to you getting into an accident.
HOWEVER, I do not understand how talking to someone talkin' on a hands free headset is going to be affected any differently then someone talking to a passager in the car. Perhapse we should make it illegal to have passangers.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Human "Task Loading" is a useful concept that's pretty common in certain kinds of activities. I'm familiar with it from the world of technical diving, but I understand that it's common in other complex and dangerous activities. The concept is a really simple one, but it's immensely useful to recognize it explicitly and give it a name so that you can discuss it directly.
In technical diving, there are a multitude of small, simple tasks that the diver has to perform. For example, even a recreational diver has to continually monitor his depth, gas supply, buoyancy and position. In addition to those tasks, a technical diver has to keep track of his position within the (often very complex) dive plan, upcoming changes of gas mixture needed to minimize narcosis, oxygen toxicity, inert gas loading, etc., surrounding obstacles, silting risks and more. Through extensive experience and practice, most of these tasks become second nature; the diver doesn't have to think about them consciously at all. It's tempting to think, therefore, that those tasks don't require any planning, because they "just happen".
The truth, though, is that those tasks do require cognitive effort. Much more than they seem to require, even to the diver. This truth becomes obvious primarily when additional tasks are added. Perhaps the diver has to navigate a narrow passageway in heavily silted, blacked-out conditions. That, too, he can handle. Suppose, though, that while dealing with all of the "normal" issues, and navigating the narrow, silted-out passageway, something else goes wrong. Maybe a fin strap breaks. And maybe something else happens as well. Suddenly, the total "task loading" is too much. Even though the diver has sufficient time to fix the fin strap while keeping an eye on the gauges, keep the breathing adjusted to avoid rising or falling in the water column and bashing into the floor or cieling of the passageway, etc., the sheer number of separate tasks that must be managed simply becomes too much, and some of them don't get done because there is a cognitive limit to how much the diver can handle.
Serious divers put significant thought into task loading issues, finding ways to eliminate even apparently trivial tasks because those trivialities may just become overwhelming when piled together, and when some unplanned additional task is suddenly added to the list.
The same is true of driving. There are a set of driving tasks that years of practice make us believe require little cognitive effort. I know I don't really consciously think about staying in my lane, checking the mirrors, watching for vehicles ahead and to the side, watching for obstacles, etc... after 20 years of driving, it all seems to just happen. But when you add an additional task, such as a cellphone conversation, and then introduce some other sort of emergency issue that must be managed, it can get to be too much, and then drivers begin to make serious mistakes.
Just as some divers are able, through practice and inherent ability, to manage more tasks at once, I suppose I can believe it's possible that video games may be a good way to improve the ability to handle greater task loads. But that doesn't make it a good idea to load up extraneous tasks, because it's impossible to know what else may happen that just may overflow your stack. At some point, there will be a situation that is simply more than you can manage... and if you've intentionally loaded yourself more heavily than you had to, your threshold will be lower.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Not quite there chief. Last accident I was in (this past friday), I will freely admit, I was on the phone... the difference is, so was the guy who rear ended me while I was stopped at a stop sign. (Which was about 25 feet past the one he decided to blow before he hit me.)
His explanation to the cop was that I should have been gone by the time he got there and because there was a stop sign where I was he felt he could just not stop at the first one.
Quoting the parent to your reply: "sonic radars (or other type) can already be used for regulating the flow of indepentent vehicles on a road."
Shame on you for not reading; shame double on the mods for modding up!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Flying can be harder, but it's mostly somewhat less time-critical, and there are a lot fewer people trying to kill you. It's unlikely that an idiot will walk out in front of your plane, and the traffic lights aren't likely to change at a bad time. Flying requires constant small corrections, but otherwise much less active interaction just to keep you alive. Above all else, you're much less likely to kill someone else if you screw up.
That said, it's no absolute either while flying or driving. It does depend on the situation, and driver skill. I'm in favour of those who argue that driving is already insanely dangerous enough, and anything that makes it worse - especially if it increases the risk of a driver killing others - just isn't OK. Don't tell me you haven't noticed the rather high proportion of morons doing stupid things on the road who're using phones vs those who are not, given the rather lower level of phone use across all drivers.
Indicating for a turn, turning a vehicle, talking on the phone and seeing the pedestrian on the road that is being turned into appears to be just one more task than many can handle, and I've had a few close calls from idiots doing this even though you would think it would be a rare event.
Ultimately if you talk on the phone while driving you have failed the test of knowing how to drive - just like the guy who turns around to talk to passengers in the back seat. If you can't even concentrate on the task in hand you really don't know how to do it properly.
The question is whether you should. No one who divides their attention among multiple tasks does as well on those tasks as they do when they do the tasks one at a time. No one. Not even a gamer, does as well with divided attention. Sure, some gamers can juggle things better than most, but why would you make a concious decision to perform worse than you could at a very important and possibly life-threatening skill? We all get upset at inattentive or distracted drivers and with good cause - they have our lives in their hands and they aren't giving those lives the respect they are due. So ... why would you do the same in return?
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
Because we drive so much, it becomes something we are able to achieve at a subconscious level. When you talk on a cell phone and drive, you prioritize between the road and the conversation.
The problem is, when you do this your ability to react to a certain situation (say a kid running across the street, or you're girlfriend breaking up with you) is decreased.
Those who play video games frequently will be able to react to these situations better because they have practice and experience responding to these types of events. If you have trouble yourself talking on your cell phone and driving, I strongly bet you wouldn't last in a quake 3 arena...
A friend of mine says Counter-Strike saved his life. He was driving along when, from the edge of his vision, he saw someone throw something from the overpass onto the road.
Because of all the CS playing he was more perceptive of movement and he was trained in how to react to dangerous objects moving your way (grenade dodging). CS will also teach you to do all this quickly, otherwise you die.
He judged the trajectory of the stone and "decided" to break hard, the stone smashed into the road just ahead of him. The stone broke and the fragments cracked his windshield but at least he was alive.
He says he would have headbutted the stone at 100 Km/H if he hadn't been a games player.
Is it multitasking? Maybe, he didn't have a good description of the psycho who threw the stone. It was fast task-switching or maybe his brain put all it's multitasking power into the stone evasion stuff and didn't bother with the guy on the bridge because of that.
- -- Truth addict for life.
Seriously, have you ever talked to a gamer while he was playing a game? You can tell when he/she is getting into a tricky situation because there is a lot of silence on that end when he has to switch to "99% brain CPU" on that next kill. Which is proper multitasking.
Another reason Gamers are better at multitasking while talking on the phone b/c they dont mind ignoring the person on the other line. I mean, when you are about to kill the other guys army (or get killed), the conversation just doesnt matter. Now, try out your typical salesperson, and you will quickly find they believe whatever they are saying to be the most important thing ever... I wouldn't be surprised if they caused a lot of wrecks while on the cell.
ignore this
If I'm not mistaken there was a article or comment on /. telling that drivers drive better when stoned ? ...
We already know it induces brain cell growth
off-topic: What's the exact reason the states is so anal retentive against cannabis while it's being legal in Holland and in use by a lot of people in Europe? Is there a scientific reason? or is it just politics?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
When driving a vehicle I turn on the music, heighten my senses, and enjoy the drive. I'm not in a rush to get from a to b. If my boss wants to talk to me it can wait until I'm no longer driving. I follow the speed limits because they are the perfect excuse to take my time and enjoy the drive. (You may be sensing a pattern by now.) I'm 21 and you know what, I think I want to enjoy a retirement in the Bahamas. Too many of you idiots out there need to be in an over glorified rush with your daily lives, which is my opinion as to why you talk on cell phones in a car. Kick back and enjoy life, if you're fired because you didn't answer your cell phone while driving you really didn't want to work for that company anyway. It will cost the company more than it did you, Human Resource Management, its costs a lot to hire and train someone.
If the UK government really wanted to improve the level of road safety rather than score cheap political points, they would have banned all mobile phone use while driving. Then again, the whole idea of such a specific offence seems a bit redundant when you already have legislation making dangerous driving illegal in general. Presumably someone thought it would draw more attention to the specific and increasing problem, or they were just after the political points.
Think money.
Hands free driving having the force of the law behind it means that those companies have a huge headset market, someone gets paid!
Real gamers are better at driving on black ice sheets with a cellphone in one hand and coffee mug in the other.
Lets not start this pissing contest or we'll lose many gamers.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Actually I think they have the order of correlation reversed. Those who multi-task well do well at video games (and other games for that matter) which is why they play a lot of video games. Everyone else gets frustrated and quits playing video games :-). Since they multi-task well, then they do equally as well multi-tasking while driving. This is a normal mistake by many people in the scientific fields, mistaking correlation for causation when there is an underlying variable.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
I disagree with this research.
;-)
I have two friends that, when they are driving, if we talk to them about games they loose concentration on what they are doing. One of these two friends had a lot of distraction moments including some facts like:
- almost crashed the car
- loosed entrances
- crashed the car
They both play WoW and we play them speaking to them that they must do a "driving quest".
I agree that playing some games can give better and rapid thinking in some things, but depends on concentration.
A lot of the comments talk about the danger cell phones due to the person on the other end not being in sync with the stuff going on for the driver (i.e. hazards, heavy traffic, etc.). I keep wondering if there's an oddball solution there. Lots of phones have camera's built in. Is it possible for the person talking to someone who's driving to see the conditions they are driving in? bandwith and infrastructure-wise it hard right now, but is there some way to put that blasted camera to use?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
I don't know about everyone else, but most the time I'm on the cell phone gaming has been a big help to me...
Usually its only my wife that calls while I'm driving home from work each day. And I gotta tell ya, all my gaming has made driving much easier while on the cell phone...I ignore her very easily both while gaming AND on the cell phone. I'm sure gaming has saved my life several times...then again some day I will have ignored something she said and she'll kill me...
The other comment I had was about other passengers in the car and not being more distracting... I guess none of them have kids....I kept reading they would react to what the driver was dealing with, etc. Kids don't care about what is going outside, they just want to scream or demand a toy or annoy you because they know you can't reach them at that point in time. Obviously this doesn't always happen, but there will ALWAYS be moments where kids act like this in a car...including the kids with great manners...they are kids after all.
Anon from Work...
Being high and drunk at the same time, however, has been shown to be much worse than the sum of the effects of the two drugs alone.
http://www.fcda.org/driving.htm
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_dr
Sometimes, sorta, and definitely not if they're little kids. Why anyone would continue to listen to the phone in a bad situation baffles me. Drop the damn thing and drive the second it looks like trouble. That's a far more effective cutoff than relying on a passenger to not be looking at their lap/gameboy/magazine/backseat and automatically shut up at the right moment. I'd be surprised if half the time they didn't yell things that were even more distracting at exactly the wrong moment.
"OH MY GOD LOOK OUT THAT TRUCK RIGHT THERE DON'T NO STOP THE OTHER OH GOD NOT WAIT THE FIRST LANE MERGE MERGE!!!!!!!!!!" or the super-useful "OH SHIT LOOK OUT!" which will have you hunting all over the place for whatever they're talking about, rather than addressing the immediate issues.
They may be more likely than someone at the other end of a call to notice, but it's not a guarantee they'll notice, or that noticing won't create an even larger distraction. The phone, however, guarantees you can end the distraction immediately if you want.
Now I don't use my phone driving much-- but I'm still not convinced it's worse than talking to a passenger. Especially one who keeps wanting you to look at things, something a cell-phone person won't ask.
Do you know me?
Yes, but a passenger is MUCH more likely to alert you of an impending danger(they can see where you are, and of course don't want to die) than a person on a cell phone.
Mom: *screams blood curtling cry* Look out!
Me: *slams on brakes* WHAT??!! *cars honking angry as they pass*
Mom: Oh he didn't pull out in front of us. Sorry.
Me: Well... He would have had to run a red light from a complete stop!
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
They can be better; however, we all share the roads, so we set some common rules to live by. How much faster do you get where you are going if you speed like a maniac?
Also, yes, perhaps you do have better reaction times. What about the reaction times of people driving other vehicles who are not expecting you to come whipping around the corner at double the speed limit, or the kid crossing the road who knows he has a few seconds once he sees a car come around the corner to get out of the way.
I also notice you say intoxicated.. are we talking about alcohol here, or something else?
So short of having speed limtis and rules about unsafe practices, what do you suggest be done?