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

[ak_hepcat]

Meh.

Different people can handle different levels of distraction. This is proven.

So, there should be tests. Depending on your score, you get to have (or not have) certain things in your vehicle,
like radios, heaters, people, pets, phones, etc.

Really, some folks should not be on the road, even if all they're doing is 10-and-2, eyes sweeping.

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[ascari]

Couple of things come to mind:

1. Ability to handle distraction is not a constant like, say your eye color. It varies with the circumstances. One day you might handle lots of distraction at the level of a fighter pilot, but the next day have the flu or you're hung over and probably shouldn't be on the road even if you're doing it 10-and-2, eyes sweeping.

2. Whatever happened to equality in the eyes of the law, justice is blind and other such misguided populist notions?

3. I remember reading about a study where people rated themselves in terms of their driving skills. Nobody said "I'm a below average driver", even that the statistical probability of that being the case is very low. (Read: I bet you really, really suck at driving, dude. :-)

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[thetoadwarrior]

Let's not forget that drivers think they're better drivers than everyone else on the road.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8479393.stm

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[RobVB]

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?

Perhaps more importantly, what kind of drivers have stopped using their phones while driving? I'd assume a lot of generally responsible drivers (who may not have known about or believed in the dangers) stopped using their phones, while those "inconsiderate" drivers who don't care about other people still race across pedestrian crossings, not even aware of the "bonus points" they're raking in because they're too busy talking to whoever it is that's so important about whatever it is that just can't wait.

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

[khallow]

I agree. I'm not for blanket litigation. Just because someone does it and get in an accident doesnt mean my rights should be taken away also. I was texting on a Nokia like in 2001 when i had a 5 speed... its not so difficult. To be honest though, i liked T9 better than a full qwerty. You can do it mindlessly. But a qwerty i can see how it can be dangerous.

I find I have to stop texting when I'm racing at 120 km/hr through a generic crowded European village while being chased by English speaking killers will funny accents. It's hard to do all that while lighting a cigarette and savoring a cup of black coffee. What a way to wake up in the morning. At least, I can keep posting on Slashdot. That takes no effort at all.

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you stupid?

You do not have the right to drive, hence the requirement for a driving test, and if you fail, you cannot drive.

You do not have the right to a cell phone either. In some parts of the country you can't even get cell phone coverage (read: various rural communities). If you have poor credit or no job or are just generally rude, a phone carrier can deny you access to their network.

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[R3d M3rcury]

Agreed. For example, I used to drive drunk all the time and I never had an accident or hurt anyone. So for 20 years of my life, I've never had an accident after drinking. Therefore, I think that I've proven that I can drink and drive and the government should give me a special waiver.

I also have this special amulet that keeps tigers from eating me. I've had it all my life and I've never been eaten by a tiger...

Re:Compliance Rates & Hands-Free Use

[MillionthMonkey]

The bans are naturally going to be ineffective in reducing actual crashes if people are merely getting tickets and still being allowed to drive. I don't understand why this surprises everybody.

What this reduction in cellphone use but not crashes is indicating, is that the idiots who make calls in cars (whether or not they decide a $100 ticket is costly enough to be a disincentive) are the same self-absorbed and self-important assholes who pay too much attention to shit inside the car and are the most likely to crash under any circumstance. A ban on cellphone use makes big news and we see it putting fear into a lot of people who don't want to waste money. But they're still going to remain totally unconscious of other mundane laws that have been around for years forbidding things like vehicular manslaughter.

Somewhere there has to be a bad joke....

[sethstorm]

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.

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

[cstdenis]

The kind of people who crash due to texting and driving, and the same kind of people who will keep texting and driving regardless of the law.

Re:Not too surprising

[SomeJoel]

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

At the very least make it illegal to pump your own gas. New Jersey and Oregon are very progressive on that front.

Re:Not too surprising

[Areyoukiddingme]

It sounds good in theory, but I'll reiterate what I said when the Robocar article came around. Robocar failed to address it, and so has everybody else. For that to happen, there would have to be a major shift in the liability regime. In particular, liability would lodge with the logical actor, namely the car manufacturer. Can you imagine the howl from GM if anybody managed to seriously propose that GM be liable for car accidents involving their vehicle? ALL accidents involving their vehicle? Sure, they're liable for design flaws already, and for manufacturing flaws like "the wheels came off", but to expand that to the minute-by-minute navigation of the vehicle? The swarm of lobbyists that would descend on Washington to crush that idea would be of locust proportions. Every manufacturer would unleash the swarms, and whoever proposed it would probably die in a car accident. :P

Maybe someday there will be some sort of widely deployed fully automated transportation. It won't look much like cars on roads though.

Re:Not too surprising

[smellsofbikes]

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.

I'd love for self-driving cars to happen, but I seriously doubt it ever will. Not because of technology limitations, but because of liability: the first time someone manages to provoke a wreck with a self-driving car, the companies responsible for designing its hardware and software will be sued out of business because they have deep pockets. The military will have self-driving aircraft, ships, and trucks for decades and we'll still be driving our own cars. It would take an act of Congress to change this.

Re:Not too surprising

[Kral_Blbec]

Even though I disagree with the OP, this is a weak argument. IR and a quasi-radar array would easily surpass even human vision in object checking. Oblivious to fog, light conditions, and constantly focused on the road in front. Even small objects could easily be detected, like a nail.

Woman can't stop texting, wrecks 3 cars in 3 years

[TimHunter]

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 benefits

[tthomas48]

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.

Re:Woman can't stop texting, wrecks 3 cars in 3 ye

[jayveekay]

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. :)

Seatbelt law enforcement varies state to state

[name_already_taken]

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.

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.

Not enforced

[v(*_*)vvvv]

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.

TFA is a thinking fail.

[timmarhy]

yeah right, because as soon as the law was passed people all stopped using phones in the car and they are crashing because of something else (preferably something they can't be blamed for).

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.

Re:Time to repeal the laws then?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

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?

Re:Probably because cell phone use isn't a factor

[timmarhy]

your data is a total failure, because the only time people at fault in an accident will admit to anything is when they have no choice due to overwhelming proof. given the option of admitted they were talking on the phone, or claiming the other car was speeding/cut them off/did something else random, which do you think they are going to claim?

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.

Flawed study

[drkim]

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.