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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."
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.)
shmG writes to share that according to a recent study on the impact of laws banning the use of cell phones during driving, there appears to be no reduction in accidents as a result.
"The HLDI compared collisions of 100 insured vehicles per year in New York, Washington D.C., 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, all though 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."
On some phone platforms, crashes occur regardless of whether you're driving a car or not.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
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.
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...but we all do it anyways. How is this any different?
Despite those laws, monthly fluctuations in crash rates didn't change after bans were enacted, all though 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.
Study 1: Cellphone use is "linked" to a four-fold increase in crash injuries.
Study 2: There is a correlation between driving while using a phone and crashes.
Study 3: After laws banning cell-phone use were enacted, monthly fluctuations in crash rates didn't change.
These studies, as summarized in the summary, are not inconsistent. Fluctuations in crash rates need not change in order for the overall number of crashes to change. Injuries are not the same as conversation or even accidents, and a difference in the quantity of injuries may reflect something as simple as not holding the wheel with both hands. And you don't say the correlation is positive.
Okay, maybe the last is implied--but still, could we try to be a bit more specific before implying conclusions that would, if true, justify major policy changes?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Here's a story from my local newspaper about a 20-something woman who's totaled 3 cars in the past 3 years because she was texting while driving. Apparently she learned this from her dad, who is unable to spend 2 hours just driving and must spend the time on the phone and doing his email.
Why isn't she in jail? Why aren't we treating driving-while-texting the same way we treat driving while intoxicated? Do we have to wait until she (or her dad) kills somebody? http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local_state/story/301086.html
There are some benefits. If a driver slams into me talking on a cellphone and there's a ban in my area, it's going to immediately move to a ticketable offense and therefore their insurance is going to pay to fix my car.
Whereas if they're talking on a cellphone and there's no law banning it then I have to prove they couldn't drive before I get my insurance money.
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".
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
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.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
Replace the steering wheel airbag in her car with a 6 inch metal spike, and the problem will fix itself with the next totalled car. :)
Could it be that bad driving causes crashes? So, eliminating cell phone usage results in people still being bad drivers? Or how about a correlation between people more likely to obey laws and those that are good drivers? Enacting a prohibition might make the better drivers less distracted, but leave the bad drivers still bad drivers and still talking on their cell phones.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
Looks like we need more cops then. I see over 50-60 people each working day on the freeway on their phone holding it in front of their face as if they are interpreting the law to be head-free instead of hands-free. Separate /rant .... I see dozens a day violating the car pool lane driving with a single person in the vehicle. IMHO, I think some people think that certain laws are petty and therefore they disregard them that or maybe they are thinking safety in numbers since there are so many others doing it. Although not a valid justification.
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For those that say you need a car to have a job and live all I gotta say is people, like the woman you mentioned, should have thought about that. The thing is though she doesn't have to think about it because her licence won't be taken away.
People like this woman will keep driving even after losing a license. They "need" to for blah, blah, blah.
There really is no rational remedy for habitual dangerous drivers in a car-centric society. We'd have to imprison them or roll out some universal means of preventing someone from driving a car without authorization (i.e. some kind of device in every car). Neither of those are practical, so we are left with moral suasion and the mayhem caused by people who are immune to it.
In Illinois enforcement of the seat belt law is a primary enforcement activity and the cops do pull people over for it.
I used to buy police cars from the county sheriff's department and I never got over how many people I would see reaching to put on their seatbelt when they saw my car coming down the street.
If I was a cop, I wouldn't have known they weren't wearing the seatbelt until they reached for it most of the time, so it was very amusing.
Putting moderation advice in your
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.
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No one is afraid of being caught, at least in Cali. Everyone who did, still does - have a phone in their hands, and I've never seen anyone pulled over for cell phone use. Enacting laws that are not enforced is the first step in enabling the sense of "I can get away with it". Be it jaywalking or littering, if there is a law, it should be enforced, and the fines should include the cost of enforcement. Ultimately if the required cost doesn't justify the subsequent fine, then the laws need to be changed to reflect that. If law is about order, then the laws we abide by must be enforceable.
Also, correlation is not causation!! This cannot be emphasized enough. Regardless of whether the science is sound or not, if their results are just at the "correlation" level, then they are NOT VERY SCIENTIFIC. These are guesses with numbers, which is far far far from any proof or truth.
what a fucking crock of shit, i see people taking their eyes off the road to send txt messages all the time. without a hands free kit you've only got one hand on the wheel and 1/2 your focus on the road. any god damn fool can see how that will end in disaster.
you know what would actually see a reduction in crashes? more cops on the road since that visible presence is the biggest deterent there is. if you think there's a cop around every corner that will book you for speeding/DYI/txting a lot less people will risk it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Forfeit your license, your car, and spend a couple months in jail.
You are right! There used to be a time when people used to drink alcohol and drive their cars. Then new laws came about that made is so that you'd lose your license and spend a few months in jail. After that, no one ever drove while drunk anymore. Problem solved!
just ban cell phones entirely
They tried that with alcohol too! (From 1920 to 1933) It also worked like a champ! No one ever drank alcohol and crime sunk to all-time lows.
The
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.
Just replace the airbag with a sharp metal spike. People will be MUCH more careful when driving.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I can sum up your post into two words: "knee jerk". As many people have pointed out already, the study certainly has not proved that the ban is and always will be ineffective. It just shows that, right now, people are still crashing just as often, but this will probably change as people get used to the idea that they can't use their phones while driving.
And besides, since you seem to implicitly trust studies, there was the original study(s) that said phones were dangerous while driving. Shouldn't your reaction be to find ways to make the ban more effective, rather than scrapping it?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
all you have succeed in doing is proving it's difficult to CATCH people who cause accidents due to cell phone use. it's bloody obivous that to anyone with 1/2 a brain that yammering away on the phone with one hand on the wheel is dangerous, and there is NO need for it. call them back ffs.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Personally, I feel the only real solution is to mandate self-driving cars
They are called trains, if you call the person driving for you part of the train.
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OK,
I get the impression this study is flawed. Here's how:
It's data set is based on "Comparing insurance claims for crash damage..."
So the crash data would be mostly self reported. Now - before the ban - someone might report, "I was talking on my phone, and I hit the tree."
However, after the ban, they wouldn't admit doing anything illegal during the crash (since this could be a cause for non-payment) like talking on the phone, so they would be motivated not to report the phone call.
Some of you thought that there is a 'right' to drive. That is not a right found in the constitution. However, the federal & state governments do have the ability to: protect us from others, and protect us from ourselves. Just like they can require seat belt wearing in cars, and helmets for motorcyclists, they can proscribe what they deem to be safe practices while driving like: having a license, not being drunk, and not driving while distracted.