"Phone In One Hand, Ticket In the Other"

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that federal regulators plan a pilot project to test 'high visibility' crackdown efforts to curb cellphone use by drivers in two cities, Hartford and Syracuse, spending $200,000 in each city, while each state would contribute $100,000 more. The Transportation Department says it wants to send the message: 'Phone in One Hand. Ticket in the Other,' and plans on ramping up enforcement on state bans of hands-free phones by motorists, advertising the campaigns and undertaking studies to see if the efforts curb behavior and attitudes. Safety advocates say that curbing the behavior requires enforcement and education, which they say has been clearly evident in past efforts with seat belts with the 'Click It or Ticket Program' (PDF) that helped increase seat belt use to 83% nationally. 'It's time for drivers to act responsibly, put their hands on the wheel and focus on the road,' says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who last year called distracted driving an 'epidemic.'"

Comments

Re:Use It, Lose It

[pushing-robot]

no worse than having a conversation with a passenger

Not entirely true. Talking on a mobile phone is inherently more distracting than talking to the person next to you, for a few reasons:

* Signal/noise. You frequently have difficulty communicating over a cellular link, especially when moving; it's normal to have to repeat yourself, ask the other party to repeat themselves, mentally diagnose communications problems, interpret garbled audio, and re-establish broken connections. Passengers are much easier to talk to.

* Context. People on the phone are more likely to talk about subjects currently relevant to them, like what to buy at a store, how to fix a problem at work, or various off-the-wall topics; they expect your full concentration and send your attention all over the map. Since you're both in the car, passengers are (somewhat) more likely to talk about topics currently relevant to both of you and compensate for the fact that you're driving by simplifying their requests.

* Awareness. The other party has no idea of your current state. A passenger is likely to notice dangerous conditions or notice that you are paying more attention to the road and stop distracting you. If you suddenly break off conversation during a phone call, on the other hand, the other party is more likely to try to distract you even more with inane chatter: "Hey! Hey! Did I lose you? Are you there? Speak up! Hey? Hey? I don't hear anything! Can you hear me? I guess I lost ya! If you can hear me, call me back! I'll talk to ya later! Bye!"

Using a mobile phone while driving is more like having a few wild two-year-olds in the back seat. Which, while still not illegal, isn't a great idea.

Re:Hasn't worked in the UK

[Smauler]

We have passed a law about the same. But there's so few Police on patrol the law just isn't being enforced. I still see plenty of drivers hand holding a mobile, despite the fact you can get a bluetooth headset for £8 in the UK.

The trouble with this is that using a hands free phone while driving is just as dangerous as using a normal phone. _All_ studies (not sponsored by headset manufacturors) have shown this, again and again. See here here here and most obviously here for a few examples. From that last : "Conclusions - When drivers use a mobile phone there is an increased likelihood of a crash resulting in injury. Using a hands-free phone is not any safer.". From Wikipedia : "Driving while using a handsfree cellular device is not safer than using a hand held cell phone, as concluded by case-crossover studies.[15][16] epidemiological,[1][2] simulation,[4] and meta-analysis[6][7]. The increased "cognitive workload" involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the increased risk.[17][18][19] One notable exception to that conclusion is a study by headset manufacturer Plantronics.

I can't believe this is not common knowledge yet. The law in the UK differentiates between hands free and normal phoning for _no_ reason whatsoever. Many of these studies were released prior to the introduction of the law in the UK. The cynic in me wonders whether the differentiation is due to the fact that police use hands free, and radios all the time, and making them illegal would make them sad :(. Just to conclude, the people who are tutting at mobile users while talking on their hands free are _just_ as dangerous as those they are frowning upon.