Phone and Text Bans On Drivers Shown Ineffective

shmG writes to share news of a recent study on the impact of laws which ban the use of cell phones while driving. There appears to be no reduction in accidents as a result of these laws. "The HLDI compared collisions of 100 insured vehicles per year in New York, Washington DC, Connecticut, and California — all states with currently enacted roadway text bans. Despite those laws, monthly fluctuations in crash rates didn't change after bans were enacted, [although] there were less people using devices while driving. An earlier study conducted by the HLDI reported that cellphone use was directly linked to four-fold increases in crash injuries. Also independent studies done by universities have shown correlation between driving while using a phone and crashes."

Comments

Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[Kelson]

Just because a behavior is banned doesn't mean people have actually stopped doing it. California's ban has been in place for a year and a half now, and I still regularly see people driving while talking on their phones. So hand-held phone use has reduced in these areas. How much?

The other thing to consider is that at least the California law allows you to use your cell phone while driving as long as you use a hand-free system, like an earpiece or a car system that acts as a speakerphone. I seem to recall that other studies have shown that hands-free cell phone conversations are just as distracting as conversations carried out while holding the phone. (The article spends a whopping one sentence on this.)

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because someone does it and get in an accident doesnt mean my rights should be taken away also.

Driving is a privilege, not a right.
Cell phone use is a privilege, not a right.

Multitasking is a matter of deluding yourself that you can do multiple things at once, and then doing each one some of the time.

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[Wolfier]

What they don't realize is that these qualities are exactly what a good driver isn't. Good drivers are defensive drivers who have a larger awareness of the roadway than just simply their selfish needs to get to point B as quickly a possible; good drivers tend to "share the road" with other motorists. Collisions are caused by conflicts in the roadway. Aggressive drivers who think they are good drivers cause more conflicts than defensive drivers. When you get two aggressive drivers causing a conflict at the same time, you have an accident. (I'm not saying that this is how all accidents happen, just preventable ones)

I agree with most of the points except the tendency to "share the road". Some do it to an extreme - driving 20% slower than the speed limit (or the speed everyone else is driving at), letting anyone get in front of him/her. This agitate drivers who normally would not be agitated, and causes a lot of passing, which in turn causes accidents.

Another example, some people insists on yielding even when they have the right-of-way. I always insist that they keep their right-of-way and go first.

We don't need people with a tendency to "share the road", or people who are polite and courteous.
Instead, we need people who understand right-of-way, who signal before switching lanes, who don't have a sense of entitlement in conflict with right-of-way ("WHY DON'T YOU LET ME CUT IN??" "Because according to the Law, you don't have the right to cut in, so wait!!"), who drive at a speed in line with everyone else on the road, and did I mention right-of-way???

Rules above courtesy, period.

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[Hognoxious]

People should be able to determine whether or not they are endangering their lives by talking on the phone.

Should other people be able to determine whether you're endangering their lives? And perhaps shoot you if you are?

If people can't do this then maybe they deserve to crash. As for the people they crash into? Well bad things happen all the time

Let's just hope they crash into people like you, ideally before any genes have been passed on.

not like we can pass a law that will magically stop all of that from happening.

You wouldn't consider a reduction to be at least a partial success? Because by your logic anything that doesn't work 100% isn't worth doing.

Not too surprising

[Omnifarious]

This doesn't surprise me too much. One interesting fact it does indicate is that the people who very conscientiously obey the law are not strongly represented in those who are in accidents.

Personally, I feel the only real solution is to mandate self-driving cars. Our communications technology is at a point where it's a serious waste of a human being's time to be driving, and that economic fact is going to be really hard to fight with law.

Re:Not too surprising

[ascari]

Or mandate the use of a chauffeur. That would create some much needed jobs as well.

Re:Not too surprising

[ascari]

I'm very much looking forward to riding in cars that are better drivers than I am.

If we all commit to keep texting while we drive that day might be here very soon!

Speeding is against the law, too

[Some.Net(Guy)]

...but we all do it anyways. How is this any different?

Re:Speeding is against the law, too

[Carnildo]

Most people who speed will go the socially-acceptable 4mph over the speed limit, while almost everyone considers going 60mph in a 25mph zone to be dangerous and unacceptable. The problem right now is that driving while talking is socially considered the equivalent of going 4mph over, rather than the equivalent of going 35 over.

More laws?

[pspahn]

Should we continue legislation that bars all these specific acts, or should we simply have a law that says, "people doing things that obstruct their driving ability will be ticketed".

Re:Use Telco data for better estimation

[trenton]

Perhaps they also log which towers each call was on. If that data is available, you could look for calls which switched towers, thus indicating the phone was probably in motion. I guess you'd get confounding data from people riding the bus, though.

Re:Flawed study...

[dgatwood]

No matter how high you crank the fines, it won't reduce the rate of crashes. The numbers just aren't there. Accidents caused by distraction are limited almost exclusively to accidents caused by traffic stopping suddenly. Rear-end collisions make up a little over 5% of all wrecks. So even if every single one of them were caused by somebody talking on the phone, you'd still only see single-digit improvement. At any given time, around 1 in every 20 cars has someone talking on the phone, which would make that pretty unlikely. Maybe you'd see a reduction in red-light running and the resulting crashes, but even that is really grasping at straws as far as justification goes.

At least the laws haven't started telling people to pull over to make or take calls. If you convinced people to do that, you'd have a significant increase in accidents. Getting onto and off of a highway from the shoulder is one of the most dangerous things you can do in a car, and far exceeds the risk of driving with a cell phone to your ear. If my stats are correct, more than four out of five highway accidents occur when someone is entering or leaving the highway.

Re:Flawed study...

[thoughtfulbloke]

Or, if caught using phone while driving:
1) Cop gives you envelope to write your address on.
2) Put phone in envelope
3) Cop takes envelope with phone away to put in post at end of shift
Plus enough of a fine to cover postage, and youve got at salutary learning experience for anyone so attached to their phone they cant resist using it while driving.