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Cell Users As Bad As Drunk Drivers
An anonymous reader writes "News.com reports on a cell-phone use study which confirms that talking on your cell is as bad as being drunk, when it comes to driving skill. The researchers studied 40 volunteers in a driving simulator." From the article: "[The subjects were observed] while undistracted, using a handheld cell phone, using a hands-free cell phone and while intoxicated to a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level--the average legal level of impairment in the United States--after drinking vodka and orange juice. Three study participants rear-ended the simulated car in front of them. All were talking on cell phones and none was drunk, the researchers said."
That's a behavioral problem that is under someone's control. I always use my hands-free set, which I plug in upon entering my car, and pay the physical phone itself no mind. Some of my friends wonder if I ignore them on the phone -- and I sometimes do if I'm driving. I pay attention to the road first, phone second.
They should not punish or forbid driving while talking on the cell phone -- but there should be stiff penalties if they cause an accident via reckless driving. I know many states are strictly no-fault, but that should change. The person who caused the accident is and should be at fault! That person should pay for the damages. Let stiff fines and financial consequences be the factors that make people make decisions -- don't penalize me because some idiots can't prioritize thier behavior.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Im not going to say that cell phones dont cause distractions while driving. But where is the line of concern drawn? I need to take my eyes of the road in order to change my CDs or the radio station. Or how about the nice people with stereo systems so loud it shakes the windows of your house. There is a small noise ordinance rule for that, but nothing major. Girls putting on make up, combing hair, getting ready, etc. Its unfair to just point out cell phone users and accidents. A line needs to be drawn somewhere if you are going to make that argument.
One night years ago when I lived south of Houston, I was driving over to a fast food place to get something to take home for supper.
There was a van in front of me that was driving all over the road. It almost went into the ditch on each side of the road at least once.
When we go to a four lane highway, the van spent part of the time taking up both lanes going our direction and some of the time in the oncoming lanes.
I was surprised to see the van turn in ahead of me at the fast food joint and pull up to the drive through.
Being the nice guy/asshole that I am, I thought I'd do a good deed and suggest that the driver wait for someone sober to drive him home. I stood about 5 feet from the window when I made my suggestion.
It turned out to be a woman who had the foulest mouth of any woman I ever met. She was screaming unbelievably loud that she wasn't drunk, that she was only using her cell phone, and that how she drove was her business and noone elses.
So I got back in my car.
When I finally got around front, everyone inside was laughing. I guess everyone in the place, employee and customer alike, heard her tirade over the speaker system.
I told a local cop about it later. He wasn't amused at all about it.
Bliss.
Aside from the quiet (and, oh say, not driving like a drunk), you're able to keep your job from interfering from your life (boss can't call you anytime, anywhere), and keep your life from interfering with your work (yeah, honey, it's terrible that that dog yukked up all over the new carpet, but I'm under a deadline here!). You can walk down the road and -even if you do suddenly remember something "important" (in quotes because it usually isn't), there's nothing you can do about it until you get home. So you relax and put aside your worries for a bit.
There are some advantages to being connected all the time, but I think the disadvantages outweigh them tremendously.
Drop the phone. Live your life on your own time.
I think I've heard about a similar report where driving with and without handsfree was compared. The conclusion was that it's not the fact that your holding a phone thats the biggest issue. It's the fact that you're concentrating on something else than driving that causes reactions to take longer.
Zere vere zwei peanuts valking down der Straße, and von vas assaulted...peanut
I'm hoping they do a study of this next, so they will have scientific data to back up law against wives nagging their husbands while driving. On the other hand, I know I would make a lot more road trips if such a law existed, so it might not be good for traffic and the environment. :)
Not to mention that the sound quality's a hell of a lot better. You're not spending brain resources trying to make out what they're saying over a crappy cell connection.
US fatalities, per 100 million vehicle miles, have fallen steadily ever since cell phones started becoming common. According to this table, the rate has fallen from 1.73 in 1994 to 1.44 in 2004, and the rate either fell or stayed the same every year (despite economic variations, etc.).
If cell phones are such a menace, why aren't more people dying in auto accidents?
Have you read my blog lately?
It's about priority of attention, NOT whether or not someone uses thier hands-free. I did read the article. Did you read my comment?
As for the distraction argument, talking to someone who is in the car is a distraction, as is listening to the radio. There were all types of groups trying to ban using a radio while operating a car when they were first available. The country, at the time, was much less tolerant of stupid and useless laws that punish ordinary people that aren't doing anything wrong.
And my argument was based on the principal that the law should punish those who actually do something wrong, not do something that might lead to doing something wrong. This is why I vote libertarian.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
I disagree with a lot of drunk-driving laws as well. The law should punish bad and reckless actions, not actions that may or may not lead to bad and reckless actions.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Multitasking ability does seem to play a part in how well people can talk on the phone while driving. Back in high school I did a science fair project on the effects of cell phone usage while driving (with the assistance of an automobile radio company's driving simulator). One of the test subjects was an Air Force fighter jockey, and he aced the test... you couldn't tell a difference at all when he was on the cell phone. Soccer moms and people who regularly dealt with distractions while driving didn't do too badly either.
So, I should be allowed to fire a gun randomly in a shopping mall, as long as I don't hit anyone? Explain why the situation is different.
And the worms ate into his brain.
The only thing that this study "proves" is that the test they used doesn't appear to be a valid measure of accident avoidance.
Over the past fifteen years, cellphone use while driving has increased from nonexistent to ubiquitous. During the same period, the fatality rates and accident rates per passenger mile have fallen to historic lows. Road design, increased use of seat belts, and an apparent reduction in drunk driving have all contributed. (see NHTSA statistics for details)
If cellphone use made any significant difference, you would see the effect in the numbers. There are just too many cellphone users for it to be hidden. If cellphone users really were as bad as drunk drivers, there would be blood in the gutters.
This is not to say that cellphone users are good drivers, or that you're not a better driver if you're not talking on the phone. I'm just pointing out the obvious, which is that driving is a low-risk activity with a large margin for error, and talking on a cellphone, or talking to your passenger, or yelling at your kids, or the million other distractions that drivers endure every day, aren't by themselves enough to use up all that margin.
They probably do statistically increase the chance of an accident, but by the clear and obvious real-world numbers, the degree of increase (or even the fact of increase) is small and quite hard to measure.
The grandparent's point is, the average legal limit of
I'll talk on my phone when I drive, and I've never had anything that could remotely be considered a close call (pardon the pun) while driving while on the phone. I'm sure I've seen hundreds of people on their phone that would say the same thing, and thanks to the quick reactions of those around them, they haven't been in an accident while lane wondering, driving through flashing pedestrian lights, stopping when they have the right of way, breaking suddenly for no reason, etc.
I've driven behind, beside, in front of people on the phone who have had no clue how close they've come to causing an accident. You may be one of the only people who hasn't done something like this, but don't count on it.
Hard to say w/o access to insurance company data, but there are several possibilities, take your pick:
* older people tend to be retired and not commute on highways--so more of their driving is low-speed around town stuff, on top of which they naturally drive slower than other traffic. that doesn't mean they get in fewer accidents but it does mean that the accidents they get into will involve less severe injuries and be cheaper for insurance companies to cover
* some subset of old people go to bed earlier and so would not be driving at night, which is somewhat more dangerous in general
* in my observation, old people tend not to go to bars and drive drunk on friday and saturday nights. in my observation they are as comfortable drinking at home and don't need to drive afterward
* old people as a group have been subject to darwinian selection...foolhardy risk-takers have been removed from the pool earlier in life. what remains may be a more sedentary, less aggressive population less prone to tailgating or agressive driving.
* they actually have a lot of experience and can avoid or mitigate a lot of situations that might cause panic in a teen or young adult.
* they may buy larger, safer, more comfortable cars
* they may simply have more time to seek out favorable insurance companies.
There was a successful AHS demonstration I believe in the 1930's, and most recently a successful demonstration in 1998. (another report)
Congress thought the successful experiment was kind of neat, but shut it down, basically saying: "Nobody's really asking for this. People seem to be pretty excited about driving, actually." (paraphrasing.)
Businesses have wanted AHS for a very long time- for many decades, they've been working on the technology, and trying to get it sorted out. (Think: highway trucking.)
What's this have to do with Cell Phones?
People are starting to value their time more. In particular, they're starting to view that car trip as useable time. Whether people really do have access to that time or not, people are taking that time, by force, with their cell phone. And the result is: crashes, accidents.
So this may be a data point towards AHS.
So while we're studying things, how about the people driving and talking to passengers? I bet they suck too.
How much did you loose on that bet?
I think that was on that Mythbuster episode... Passengers are in the same environment as the driver, and react to it with the driver... well, some times (arguments happen). People on the phone, however, don't wait to ask a question after you're done doing your left turn. It's really a different situation.
And don't forget: anything distracting besidses the phone, you can ADD to the phone. You can have people on the phone and in the car talking to you at once, be drunk and on the phone, be tired and on the phone, etc.
You can't take the sky from me...
A couple of years ago I read some medical research stating the part of the brain used to speak is the exactly the *same* part of the brain we use to think. Unfortunately, that part of the brain does not do both at the same time. In short, thinking and talking are mutually exclusive temporally.
When speaking, you pause sometimes. Why? To think. Ever do any *good* dictation? It is hard (impossible?). Multiple teenagers in a car at the same time is not always a good idea and you can see why. Also, hands-off equipment is a Feel Good solution, but effective? No.
I saw this study 3-5 years ago and failed to keep a copy. If anyone knows of it and can provide a reference, it would be appreciated. Thanks.
You can have fun with this too. Whenever you see a person in continuous talk mode, you *know* they are not thinking. ...and that includes Politicians. ;-)
But the attentiveness of the driver would be dependant on what he blocks out, so that could be the people in the car or the person on the phone just as easily. If push came to shove (perhaps literally), you could drop the phone and ignore it completely, while it would be harder to block out noise from inside the car. As for additive distractions, of course you can take something bad and make it worse. The discussion was about a single variable and how it impacts the situation.
My honest opinion is that driving should be like a pilot flying, and taken as seriously. But the lack of convenience and stubbornness of people to do what they want while driving is what will limit the possibility of actually having flying cars someday.
BTW, I don't count MythBusters as fact, but then again I don't think a lot of studies are properly representative.
- Kal`Goblez
I am a professional criminologist, and I can tell you that the decision to make 0.08 the legal limit was not determined by any scientific research, it was determined by politicians seeking reelection by seeing who could better protect the public from the dangers of crime. In the instance of drunken driving, they rely on unsound measures, such as lowering the blood alcohol levels to absurdly low points rather than actually since it is a test that is easy to administer and hard to contest in court rather than trying to actually determine whether a person is actually to drunk to drive a vehicle. 0.08 is usually not even two beers for the average person.
Some people's bodies can withstand a very high blood alcohol level before anyone would guess they are drunk, while a single beer would cause others to passout. The idea that some breathalyzer test can determine drunkeness is more a convience than a fact.
By that standard we should allow drunk driving. Hell, get rid of the whole licensing system: if you can afford a car feel free to drive!
Cars are dangerous. Misused, people die. If only the driver were putting himself at risk, I really wouldn't care. But your mistakes can put other people on the road at risk. So we regulate the heck out of driving. All in all the risk-to-benefit of drunk drivers wasn't good enough, so it was made illegal. Sure, some people can drive at 0.08 without risk, but some can't, and those who can't don't realize it. Same for speed limits; some people can drive faster safely, but how can you tell them apart from the people who think they can, but actually can't? Stopping them after they've had an accident and killed someone is too late, so we set speed limits that apply to evenyone. Science is suggesting that the risk-to-benefit of calling on the road is risky, so we consider making it illegal. To be fair, this is something we should seriously consider, but at the moment the science isn't on your side. Sure, maybe you're able to safely drive on the phone. But lots of other people who think that are wrong. I'm perfectly happy to have you talking on the phone while you drive, but I'd rather those other idiots weren't because they might hit me!
The problem is that you can't completely predict when you'll need that attention. The situation may see safe, then the driver ahead of suddenly breaks erratically. Maybe he has a seizure. The oncoming car's tire may blow out and swerve into your lane. While some accidents cannot be avoided, even by a perfect driver, there are some accidents that can be avoided if you're paying attention. Every bit you lower your attention increases the number of accidents you get into.
(This is, by the way, why your insurance company will raise your rates after you get into two accidents, even if the other guy is totally at fault. Statistically it suggests that you might not be paying enough attention and while the other guy may have made the mistake, you might have been able to compensate for it.)
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"Unless we're going to pass laws against every conceivable behaviour which might cause someone to drive dangerously..."
:)
No, just the most common, most dangerous ones.
"...the overwhelming majority of those who are on the phone don't almost hit you..."
I don't care. If some fraction of the drivers who could be safe enough while talking on the phone get prevented from doing so because that's the only way to prevent the fraction who become dangerous from doing it, so be it. People don't need to drive as much as they do or yak on the phone as much as they do, and they certainly don't need to do both at once.
Really, my point is that I think talking on the cell phone makes one a less attentive, more dangerous driver by a much greater degree than most people realize. Most people think they are perfectly safe while talking on the phone, even when they are not. People who are very careful not to drive drunk don't think twice about driving while on the phone, despite studies (this isn't the first) saying it's at least as dangerous. A huge percentage of these people wouldn't do it if it was illegal, even if it was just a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor. I guess I have less problem than you engaging in this sort of safety-oriented social engineering. I certainly agree the severe punishments should be for those who are most directly dangerous. The only punishment I'd advocate for cell-phone using drivers is just enough of a fine to make them think twice about doing it.
Well, that's when I'm feeling reasonable. Other days I advocate massive fines for arranging your life such that you have to drive every day, and the right of cyclists to kick big dents in SUVs on general principle