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Could Anti-Texting Laws Make Roads More Dangerous?
An anonymous reader writes "A new study has found that various state laws that ban texting while driving might actually make the roads more dangerous. If that seems counterintuitive, it's the laws of unintended consequences at work. The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more. That is, they end up trying to text with the phone held lower down to avoid it being detected. But, of course, that also takes their eyes even further off the road. The study itself looked at texting-related accidents both before and after 4 different states implemented such laws, and also compared them to neighboring states with no such laws. The results suggest the laws certainly don't help and in some cases appeared to make the situation worse. So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?"
Sense vehicular motion (including vibration) and shut down the texting function while in motion.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Camera in every car, of course.
As those who drive unsafely remove themselves from the gene pool, accident rates will go down.
A Speech-to-text system in your car -- or built into your phone, that's the better solution...
Now someone just needs to make one that's affordable and make it easily obtainable (such as with a radio/sound system upgrade on a new car, or other cheap solution)
I wonder how hard it would be to make a device that blocks or otherwise interferes with all cellphones in a small (say, one-two meter) area? Make people who are caught texting pay a fine and have a device like this installed in their car. Or, force those caught texting while driving to have warning signs plastered all over their car with a "If you see me texting, call 1-800-555-5555 and report me for a reward" (sort of the modern equivalent of the pillory; speaking of which, bringing back the pillory might be the way to go). Luckily when someone is accused of texting while driving it is fairly easy to prove if the person was texting by looking at cellphone records, right?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
If my car drove itself i could sit back and text.
It is better to change people thru inspiration and education rather than by force and control. Always has been, always will be. However, if the states launched an education campaign about texting & driving dangers, that would be an expensive, not an income from citations. Also, our precious insurance companies wouldnt be able to jack your rates up nearly as high.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Provide incentives/punishment so that the Nash equilibrium is one where you don't text and drive. DUH!
And why does "texting" need to be explicitly mentioned in the laws. How hard would it be to prove someone was "texting"? No, I wasn't texting, I was shopping, playing a game, whatever.
Call it what it is... bad driving / reckless endangerment.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Write people an extremely hefty fine if they are involved in an accident while texting. Make it easier to convict them on involuntary manslaughter charges if they were texting at the time they hit a pedestrian. If people can safely text, great. If not, punish them when they cause problems. This is the same as any other distraction while driving - you can think about other things than the road while driving legally (work problems, family problems, etc). If you can still safely drive, great. If not, you pay the piper when you hurt someone else.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
Why not ban texting while actually driving, but permit it at stop signs and red lights? People then have an incentive to wait until it's safer—I don't say "safe" even in this case, but safer—for them to do so. And of course if you sat there for too long after the light turned green, I'm sure a police officer could cite you for something (blocking a roadway? hazardous driving? whatever)
to think before implementing worthless laws.
Don't outlaw texting (though I think it's dumb), but make it an extra fine if you get in an accident, are speeding, etc. due to texting. The way the law is now, I'm concerned about even monkeying with my iPhone to switch playlists, because I hook it up to my car stereo. It really isn't any different than switching radio stations--I would still have to divert my eyes momentarily to see what I'm doing--but now I have to worry about getting pulled over for texting even when I haven't been.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I think preventing it 100% isn't possible. The only way to come close will be accomplished by some technical measure. Some mechanism to measure rate of speed or the like. Obligatory: More excuse for big brother to GPS enable all phones.
Studies have shown that it's not the act of holding the phone that is the problem, but rather the fact that you're concentrating on something other than the road.
Granted, speech-to-text would be less of an issue than talking because you can pause while doing some tricky driving, but you're still going to be thinking about the message you're composing rather than on your driving.
The only real way to police poor driving habits is via auto insurance. In the long run, bad & distracted drivers will pay more and cost the insurance companies more because of accidents. In turn, the insurance companies and the auto makers will innovate and create ways to distract drivers less. It is a lesson in patience & capitalism more than anything... Government force is excessive and useless in this case. Allow the industry to tackle the problem - creating jobs and technologies in the process.
The people who believe they are superior to everyone else and can concentrate on texting and driving at the same time will pay the price in higher insurance rates from all the accidents they cause. They also get to pay for the medical bills of those they injure. They may even go to jail if they kill someone, thus preventing them from doing any more damage (other than to the taxpayer's wallet).
As to the answer to this question:
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?"
The police should be allowed to remove one digit from a person's hand when found to be texting and driving or have caused an accident as the result of texting and driving.
"Ma'am, just hold your hand up and spread your fingers. This will only take a moment."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Too bad there's other drivers on the road, otherwise I'd say "let them text while driving until they're dead".
Driving a car is not a right, it's a privilege. You're supposed to know how to drive safely. I know it would cost a lot but the roads would be safer if everyone was forced to pass a driving test every year or so. Even once a decade would be better than the "pass the test once, drive until you're dead" formula that we have now.
Increase fines. Have cops take photos of license plates and drivers at an intersection. Compare driver photo to DMV registered owner. Send out fine. In the event of any accident, get cell records and if people texted or called within a time frame of the accident, give them complete fault, take their car, and throw them in jail.
We should just make gun^H^H^H cell phone ownership illegal. That would fix it.
echo 656472616c73746f6e406d61632e636f6d0a|xxd -r -p
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
Natural selection.
If you text/web and drive, you are a fucking idiot and no better than the idiots who drive under the influence.
I don't care what you do in your home or on your property. I don't care what you do with any other consenting adult or adults. But when you're on the road, you are putting more people than yourself at risk with stupid behavior.
The fine should be $1,500 - no exceptions - and 150 hours of community service. Then we'll see how important it is to update your Facebook status.
there is no a single good study that actually show how dangerous, or even if it is actually more dangerous, to text while driving, maybe they should just stick with pulling people who a driving dangerously, regardless of the reason?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Repeal the law and ticket based on inattentive or reckless driving.... peice o' cake
I never really understood why a whole new law had to be introduced for cell phones/GPS's. most jurisdictions that I know of have some sort of punishment for "driving without due care and attention". they tend to have heavier consequences than the newer you-can't-touch-a-phone laws...but a car smashing into a biker has the same results whether that driver was napping, or texting..
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Duh! Just like anti-lock brakes made drivers more reckless, you will continue to find that drivers 'work around' any laws passed. They continue to do as they damn well please, whether it is smart, stupid, dangerous, or otherwise.
Except that, like in many cases of drunk driving, the person who dies isn't the reckless (or drunk) driver it's the person they hit.
Exactly.
That's because if you're driving your car and you hit someone, you are most likely to do it with the part of the car that's leading in the direction of travel - which is to say the front of the car. You are probably just as likely to hit the side of the victim's car though, so you get the benefit of the very large crumple zone at the front of your car and the victim only gets the protection of their car's door.
It seems like education is likely to be the only solution. Or requiring cars to require the driver uses both hands. Your hands are supposed to be on the steering wheel unless you have a manual transmission and you're shifting gears.
Putting moderation advice in your
Ugh. A slashdot article linking to some dude's blog post linking to the Christian Science Monitor's discussion. Can't *someone* link to the original study by the Highway Loss Data Institute?
Here's the HLDI's summary, with graphs:
http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr092810.html
Links to more details on that page. It's actually a pretty interesting analysis, if you go beyond the lede.
If nothing else, keeping it illegal keeps accidents caused by it from being declared "no fault."
of reverse psychology I've ever heard. Ok, let's ban health insurance then people will try to get less sick.
It's a fucking dumb way to communicate. Seriously-- you're holding a device in you hand that lets you talk with someone else, and instead you decide to type out a message on a tiny keyboard. What the fuck?
Tell people that texting while driving will make them go blind.
Oops, guess we shouldn't have phased that out.
Do as the police do in the UK if you have no car insurance, they confiscate your car at the roadside and you and your passengers have to walk home, pay all the recovery and storage fees (or your car gets crushed after 30days)
and you still get reported for having no insurance and the fines and endorsements (6-8 points out of a total of 12 then you lose your licence) that entails
pretty good deterrent if your whole car is up for grabs all because you want to text somebody
"..why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"
tnx http://www.bash.org/?4753
Anti-texting laws must have severe penalites to work, so that it's not worth the risk of trying to hide your texting. Manslaughter if someone is killed in an accident involving a texter. Something equivalent to DWI if simply caught texting.
remove the offending idiots from the road forever
Then after the texters have killed each other off, re-open their roads to the non-texters.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Nothing. People are going to text and drive whether it's illegal or not. No matter how stiff of fines/penalties you impose. Just something we're going to have to learn to deal with. Welcome to the modern age.
One thing about this study: the laws are only a year or so old in most states. In my experience, people tend to ignore minor laws until they get caught, then change their behavior to avoid repeat offense penalties. There hasn't been enough time for the average texting addict to get busted and possibly break the habit.
Let's look back on this in a year or two before we make a final verdict.
I sometimes wrestle with th question of whether or not dangerous behaviors should be punishable at whatever level it takes to make people stop doing them.
For example, we know texting while driving is dangerous, based on stastics. It significantly risks other people's lives. Also, any sane person should know it's just a dumb idea.
So would it be just, or a good idea, to simply have a thre strikes rule for this? First strike - no driver's license for 6 months. Second strike - a public caning. Third strike - execution or banishment to Wasilla, AK (offender's choice).
Similarly for dealing dangerous drugs, or drunk driving.
Why is it that when the repeat offenders play a game of chicken with the law, it's always the non-offenders that blink and let the offender get off with light punishment? (I'm thinking of drunk drivers with many, many offenses.) Why can't these repeat offenders be given threats of penalties so serious that it actually curbs their behaviors that endanger others?
People get more idiotic with every generation. Back in my day, you didn't see us barreling around corners in our mammoth Buicks pounding away on Underwoods balanced on the dashboard.
No, really. How goddamn fucking stupid do you have to be to TYPE while you drive? I'm 100% for them killing themselves off, and the sooner the better, but unfortunately they tend to take out innocent people while doing it. At least drunks have the excuse that they're drunk when they made the decision to get behind the wheel. Good God, some people are morons.
"No matter where you go, there you probably are." -- Buckaroo Heisenberg
Here's how to deal with it: If you are in an accident and you were using your mobile phone while driving (look at the call logs), then your insurance won't pay your damages and you are automatically at fault.
Oh, and you're done for dangerous driving automatically.
is that you can't legislate stupidity.
There are a million other things that you can do in a car that are equally as dangerous. Doing your makeup, shuffling around your glovebox for a new CD, reading a newspaper, yelling at your kids in the back seat and so on... but there are no laws against these things. What the law really means to say is: "pay attention to your driving" and instead we get a law that targets only one of the many things that can cause an accident.
>>what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
Don't text, shave, drink, eat, look at maps...etc while driving.
It's up to the individual driver to drive safely.
The government can't do anything to stop unsafe driving.
As any cop or politician will tell you, more laws, of course. How about "three strikes"? Or "zero tolerance"? Surely that would do it!
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Obviously: Missiles!
K Man
Just put a big spike in the center of the steering wheel, pointed at the driver's chest. That will make people drive VERY safely.
Or put a camera in every car, recording the last 30 seconds or so, so you can see what the driver was doing if there is an accident.
QWERTY keyboard build into the steering wheel. Now you can text while keeping your hands on the wheel!
In other news - anti-robbery laws that just came into effect will make streets more dangerous! Before it was perfectly legal to come up to a strange on the road, show him a knife and pick their pockets for that few buck that you were short for a latte, not that robbing people has become illegal the criminals have become more aggressive, they put socks on their heads and run around with sharp knifes, also they often take all your money because the act of robbing someone now has become a dangerous thing for them to do. Also many states are consearned that now that robbery is considered a crime the crime rates will go up and will thus spoil their national statistics which is the last thing they need in an election year.
Catch someone texting while driving - impound their car and tow it away. We already do this for people who are too drunk to drive. This just does the same for people who are too stupid to be allowed to drive.
Take the phone away too.
Studies have found that laws prohibiting bank robberies have failed to reduce the number of thefts while making them more dangerous for innocent bystanders. Police officer's attempts to enforce those laws have only encouraged criminals to carry weapons.
While I think it is ridiculous to write a law to make prosecuting every little driving distraction easier, the fact is the law is there. If people are attempting to be more discreet while still violating the law, the problem isn't that this makes them more dangerous. The problem is that the penalties are not severe enough to stop the behavior.
Example: I'll drive 5 over on the interstate because I know the chance of getting a ticket is slim. I won't drive 5 over in a school zone. The risks are higher and the penalties are nasty.
Another day, another update to a Google android app.
... Is the person who is on the other side of the accident, obeying traffic rules and minding their own business when some idiot blows a red light because they were too busy texting and then is killed. Traffic accidents are incredibly traumatic, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I know a friend who had an accident that wasn't her fault, but is still making payments on her newly purchased car because the insurance company paid her for the value of the car, not the value of the loan. And death is forever, so punishment after the fact is little solace to the teenager last month who plowed into a family SUV last month in my home town and killed the passenger all because he was too impatient to wait behind a car driving in front of him around a curve on a backroad.
Your same logic could be applied to people who speed or run redlights. Sure don't ticket them until they have an accident after running a redlight. The problem with your idea is that people already think they are fantastic drivers and could not possibly get into accidents. Then they get into an accident and the damage is done. Sure don't ticket that guy driving drunk until he kills a nice happy family of four or something that looks equally gruesome and heartwrenching on the 11:00 PM news.
To me, the obvious answer to car accidents is public transportation, and I'm sure that these rules are not helping very much because it's very hard to enforce before an accident anyway. However, if we continue to insist on cars as the way we get around in the US, then we all have a vested interest in making them safe by insisting on enforcement of rules that protect every driver as best we can. I'm not saying the anti-texting laws are effective, I'm just saying punish only on results is not as effective as you think.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
The trick is to get all of the people who text while driving to get on to the same road while no one else is there. Then you just keep them driving there while they're texting and eventually they'll kill each other off and then all that's left will be the smarter people who look at the road or don't drive.
Here's a link to the actual (very readable) report: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr092810.html
And the original article, I think: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0928/Bans-on-texting-while-driving-don-t-reduce-crashes-study-says
In the event of an accident, get the log of phone usage.
If the driver was on the phone, the state takes the car on the first offense.
Cars are sufficiently expensive to replace that behavior would change quickly.
Every time I see one of these topics the overwhelming opinion, irrespective of the proposed fix to the problem, is that the problem is not texting, but distraction. I think most sane people are willing to agree that "Texting while driving" is not inherently a problem, but "Driving while distracted", be it by your phone, the person next to you, or the 20 ounces of vodka running through you, is in fact a problem.
While on one level it would be nice to actually solve the problem, and this is where we get into the applications of speech-to-text, remote controlled steering wheels, and other awesome nerdy crap we love to talk about, I think on some level you'll never be able to fix this with law.
It seems to me that whenever you're defining a standard - be it a law, a work procedure, a use case, whatever, you need discrete, finite data. You need something that says "If X, then Y". That's why its so easy to create, pass, and most importantly enforce a law that says "You can't text while driving". This is easy to enforce. It's another thing entirely to say "Driving while distracted is now illegal". Great. What the hell does this mean?
As much as I think it's ridiculous, and in this case, potentially harmful - to have a law preventing a symptom of the problem rather than the core issue, I think this is one of those cases where you can't regulate something, or restrict it, because the core issue isn't really enforceable by law.
Get caught texting while driving you once you lose your license for a year.
Get caught twice, or cause an accident doing it and you lose your license for life.
This would screw over the passengers. And when the passengers are kids that you're trying to keep quiet while you're driving, this also screws the driver.
You'll just have to use a more traditional method for keeping the kids quiet, such as threatening to pull over. Also, flail at the back seat with your inboard arm. That was always effective.
We know that texting-while-driving is far more dangerous than driving while drunk.
We have decided, as a society, that driving while drunk is so dangerous that we have made it illegal, and impose stiff penalties. It isn't just illegal to drive while drunk. It is illegal to have an open container in the car. This is based on the reasonable assumption that, if there is an open container, the driver may take a drink and become impaired.
I think it would be reasonable to decide, as a society, that texting-while-=driving is so dangerous that we should impose stiff penalties. And, it shouldn't just be illegal to drive while texting. It should be illegal to have an open texting device in the car. If there is an open texting device, the driver may look at it and become impaired. Many times, I have seen a teenager say "look at this", and hold his/her phone out so that another person can read it. If that other person happens to be a driver, the drivers attention is taken away from the driving.
I really don't have any problem with drivers who decide to kill themselves, other than perhaps that I get stuck paying part of the cost of the emergency services. I have a really big issue with drivers who try to kill me, by swerving their vehicles toward mine while driving at a high rate of speed. Recently, that has happened several times each day.
Easy. Instead of writing new laws targeting the specific act (texting while driving), enforce the existing laws that address the underlying reason it's a problem (distracted driving). That way the presence or absence of a phone isn't a factor, so concealing the phone has nothing to do with anything. If someone isn't paying attention to the road, ticket them.
The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more.
Examples of that theory in action:
Illegal Drugs leads to uber-dangerous system of dealers, smugglers, and addicts.
Illegal Alcohol leads to the creation of the American "Mob"
Examples of where that theory doesn't work:
Illegal drinking and driving -- Deaths and injuries occur from people's reactions and judgments being impaired, not from them trying to hide a bottle while driving.
Illegal use of cell phone w/o hands free headset -- Deaths and injuries occur from people focusing more intently on what's being discussed on the phone than driving, neck-swiveling being impaired by holding the phone to your head, and the removal of a hand/arm from the process of controlling the car.
Illegal texting while driving -- Deaths and injuries occur from people focusing more intently on what's being discussed on the phone AND disabling one or BOTH hands from the process of controlling the car.
For the situations where people turn to HIDING their texting while driving, the problem isn't the law, it's the idiot whose priorities are MESSED UP. They somehow believe LIFE comes after transportation and communication.
You can't prevent people from doing stupid things. Any suggestion to the contrary ignores human nature.
If driving becomes less important as a day-to-day activity, people will have more opportunities to text safely. My suggestion is to decrease highway funding and use that money to construct and maintain railway and light rail infrastructures. Then, have transportation companies pay you to use this grid and use that money for upkeep.
You may wonder why I argue that the state government should be doing that. The reason is that (a) constructing such a network is a huge investment, (b) it's well-understood how these things work, (c) once it's built, it would be silly to build a competing rail network, (d) it's impractical to force companies to surrender their rail monopoly once they have invested, and (e) it's in the public interest that fewer people drive cars, even in the interest of people who drive cars themselves. Thus, the state government, by providing the infrastructure, allows competition on the same rail network.
It's the same thing that should have been done with cable; leaving this in the hands of corporations is the precise reason for why the `invisible hand of the market' has not smashed Comcast into a bloody pulp yet.
Charge the offenders with impaired if they're caught texting while driving
As someone else brought up, this would lock passengers out of texting too. It perfectly illustrates a rant I was ready to fire off to Toyota before their PR meltdown. I was riding shotgun in a friend's new Toyota trying to set up his phone to radio Bluetooth. It wasn't working, so I deleted the phone and tried to re-pair it, until the radio said this function was unavailable with the car in motion. GDI, as a driver I can decide when it is safe to do something or face the consequences, and there is no reason as collateral damage their "safety feature" should negatively affect passenger's operation of features.
I was going to tell them it would be a cold day in hell before I bought one of their cars if they treat their buyers like this, but when their little disaster broke, I figured they had bigger fish to fry and my letter was even more likely to hit the circular filing cabinet.
The same goes with all those OEM navigation units. I'd NEVER buy one that requires you to press a button every time you start the car, saying you understand operating this feature can be dangerous with the car in motion (looking at you in particular HONDA!!!) I'm ok with pressing that button once after every battery disconnection and then storing it as a preference, or maybe doing it ONCE a year no matter what, but NO more often than that. I don't care if your company lawyers told you to avoid liability of stupid operators this was required. They can lawyer me right out of being willing to purchase your overpriced PITA "feature".
I was on a walk at night several months ago and a woman drove by with the dome light on in her car. With the inside of her car being perfectly illuminated against the darkness, I could clearly see that she was reading a book. This was especially scary, as she was driving through a school zone in a neighborhood with many children and few lights (reduced light pollution, I think is the goal). I would expect that if she had driven by a cop, she would have been pulled over and sited for reckless endangerment. Why should this be different for texting?
Make sure they ban those computers in cop cars that they put plate numbers in to while driving as well.
The gov't can flaunt all the studies/stats out there even show videos of what happens when you get into an accident, but that won't help. People will still think to themselves, "Shit, I need to tell XYZ that I'm going to be home late, or to let out the cat...."
Last week I was walking in the mall and saw a woman about 75ft in front of me looking at her phone while she was texting and walking. I stopped walking and just stood there. A few seconds later she walked right into me. In the 75ft that she walked, she never looked up once. She proceeded to blame me for not getting out of the way and I calmly told her that I was standing there looking at the display, I can't be responsible if you were not paying attention to where you were walking.
I can only imagine what this woman is like when she's driving a 3000lb car going 45mph.
I agree with the other posters, if you're texting while in an accident, hefty fine, removal of driving privileges, suspension of license, put it on your record (like a DUI), increase your auto insurance rates, public flogging etc...
Btw, in California they are trying to lower the fine for making a 'rolling stop' at a stop sign from $450 to $219. The fine is supposed to be painful.
Darwin had the answer.
"If...you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning" - Catherine Aird
Problem solved.
Only in America would some butt clowns think of better ways to do stuff while driving, instead of just not doing distracting things while driving! What did you do(those of you who were around then) when you didn't have a phone with you 24/7? Nothing...NOTHING...is that important that you need to distract your attention while in control of a 2-3 ton vehicle. in the last 3 months up here, we had a cyclist made a paraplegic because of a girl texting that "didn't see him", and another girl that got killed swerving head-on into the opposite lane. It's also been proven by studies done by the NHTSA(look it up, you geniuses that seem never to have seen them) that any distraction that forces your attention elsewhere(talking on the phone, texting, noisy brats in the car) increases the likelihood of an accident substantially.
But go ahead, think that you are an exception, that you are entitled to be hooked up 24/7 to trivial BS. As a paramedic, I'm sure I'll see your sorry ass sometime down the road...literally.
Following the same logic: making it punishable to drive faster than the speed limit makes people instantly brake when seeing a cop measuring speed, thus potentially making driving more dangerous. So speeding should be allowed, right?
Tax Cuts are always a good solution to any problem. Especially Tax Cuts to Fat Cats and Big Businesses. But sure to call them successful Americans and Small Businesses.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Can you remember when the CB radio fad took off, and there were all these news reports talking about the danger of CB'ing and driving?
Wait... that never happened...
Did we not have an over-sensationalist media that tried to get us to tune in by scaring us so shitless that we began begging lawmakers to create laws based on knee-jerk reactions back then or something?
Here in CT as in many other states, talking on the phone without a hands free device is banned but people do it all day long on the roads and highways anyhow. There is talk of banning texting as well but IMO that would be a waste of time and $'s as stupid people outnumber us.
according to a National Highway Traffic Safety report released earlier this week. Ironically overall traffic fatalities are down 20% last decade due to more safety features and less driving during the recession.
1. Telephone companies can and do routinely trangulate from towers or use GPS-enabled smartphones to establish the position of a cellular phone. It's not rocket science to integrate those measurements over time and obtain the velocity of a cellular phone.
2. Add some code to phone company messaging servers that disables sending and receiving of text messages while the mobile phone is in motion.
3. New phones should have some code that notices the situation and disables reading old messages and typing new messages in advance. Perhaps they won't allow you to dial anything but 911 or even receive calls unless you have bluetooth.
Yes, this means that we take away some convenience to be safer. Yes, the phone companies won't make as much money. I'm sorry. People are behaving like children and we need to take their toy away.
The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more.
Well then obviously the fines just aren't big enough! /sarcasm
No solution, just leave the law in place and spend tons of money on enforcing it. It's like trying to stop people from lighting cigarettes in their cars.. or stopping them from looking at something they see on the side of the road, their attention can be off the road in front of them for the same time it takes to send a simple text message. They can put these no texting while driving laws in place but there won't be a positive or negative effect, just more of the same people getting into accidents for being distracted by one thing or another.
The author discussed his Android App at the August 2010 Denver Java Users Group Meeting. He sets it so that it issues "I'm busy driving" reply when he is driving at highway speeds. There are other modes too. There were some results comparing the various location methods in phones- cell-tower, gps, dead-reckoning. GPS has some issues to my surprise.
They'll be more easily caught though, because they'll be swerving all over the road.
Some drunk driver the other day was convicted of murder instead of manslaughter because he'd already had a DUI conviction, knew that driving under the influence could lead to someone else's death, chose to drive while drunk anyway and killed someone. Just run a "Don't drive while texting" PSA campaign and then punish infractions severely and punish deaths caused by people who were texting VERY severely and people should get the idea pretty quickly. It's a pity about all those innocent bystanders who are going to die before people realize that the consequences of doing this will too severe for them to risk doing it, though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
put it on the car manufacturers .... cell signal dampening while car in motion
I get tired of arrogantly clever people inexperienced in the sorrows of life using sophistry to promote their vices. Distraction kills!
In the jurisdictions studies, was the anti-texting law actually enforced, or was it one of those "passing a law should make it scary enough for them" situations?
For example, it's mandatory for cyclists under 18 to wear a helmet in Ontario, but this law is not enforced (surprise! police have better things to do). Even so, people look at cycling injuries before and after the law was passed and draw conclusions about the effectiveness of mandatory helmet laws.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Seems a little absurd to add that, considering the person you're speech-to-texting is capable of decoding speech far better than a microprocessor.
Your brain is not a computer.
2:14
-Texting while driving is dangerous.
-Dangerous
-Treaterous
-perilous.
-People who were text messaging were twenty times more likely to have an accident than those who were talking on phones instead of typing.
-Just say no.
-But I am a sucker for peer pressure, my thumbs get stuck.
-Get a designated texter.
-People on a road can turn an LOL into a great big OMG.
-People on a road can turn an LOL into a great big OMG.
-People on a road can turn an LOL into a great big OMG.
You can't handle the truth.
I've said the same thing. Of course, I always get poo-pooed. "Oh, but what about passengers in the car?" etc. etc.
Personally I think it would be just fine if cell phones stopped working if they sense they are moving at over 5 MPH. I could see special SIM cards for people who would need to be exempt from this requirement.
If you really, really need to talk to someone while you are on the road, pull over! It's still light-years more convenient that the old days of trying to find a pay phone.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
The word for people who text while driving is "dead." ("Stupid" comes close but fails to capture the true insanity of such an attempt at multitasking two visually-intensive tasks.)
Or short-range jammer engaged whenever the ignition is turned on. If someone needs to use the phone, pull the fuck over and park.
Read the response above with this title if you haven't already for the 'what'. And for the wherefore:
It's good policy to try to find possible pitfalls, and it's good science to look for alternative hypotheses. But the logic behind these unintended consequence things is known to be flawed except by the people who use them for less forthright reasons. They're the kind that will read an article with someone's assertion and call it a study, or worse, write an article as a vehicle for their assertion as though there's a study, when there isn't. What people *might* do? And then give this possibility in graphic detail? You get the kind of detail from seeing them do it, so there's no 'might' to sully your study, or you imagine it. On the other hand, the original may have been an opinion piece that some so called journalist got ahold of, and as they do with many articles that get submitted here, rewrite as though the assertion were proven.
In any case, if there's a study, it's wrong, and chances are there's no study.
An example to add to the response referenced above of where the theory behind these don't work:
Driving too fast - Speed limits are set for safety reasons. Laws are enacted to enforce them. According to the theory of unintended consequences, some people would violate the law and have more accidents. Where it fails - The safest speed is the one most others travel at. The more you differ from the average, the more likely you are to be in an accident. The U.C. theorists get this part right. But the data from NTSB says that the fewest accidents occur when people are driving 5 to 10 MPH over the local limit, and people driving the speed limit are 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident, about the same as people driving 15 to 20 over. Evidence that they drive that speed on purpose is that the safest speed is 5 to 10 over, whether it's 25 or 65 speed limit.
They would just select themselves right out of existence!
(sadly, probably not ;_;)
When will we learn that prohibition is a failed strategy?
If we want people to avoid risky behaviors -- whether that means using drugs or texting while driving the best strategy has always been, and always will be, education.
Prohibition has always caused more problems than it solved.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Actually, it's entirely possible and sensible. In order for a law to be effective it just has to REDUCE the risk, so for your example it just has to be the case that occasional sudden braking for police causes less accidents than unrestricted speed. Ths is particularly true when matched with laws and education about safe following distances.
Now, what the article is suggesting is that having a few distracted drivers who are also attempting to conceal their texting is actually causing more accidents than having a higher number of distracted drivers who don't need to conceal what they are doing. I'd stamp it 'plausable, needs further study'.
Of course, it doesn't mean the law should be revoked. Maybe there are other things we can do to supppliment it, just like with the minimum following distance example above.
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
Just shoot the offender at point blank. Whoever texts while driving is a waste of protein, better recycle it before it injures humans.
I like your idea. When laws are too extremely opposed to natural inclination, they will be broken and sometimes with dire consequences. Make laws that correspond to how people generally think they themselves should act (not what they think others should do) and they will be followed more often than not. People often think laws apply only to others. Designing laws from a "what if I got caught" perspective makes them more reasonable and followable.
Also, even though tech rarely solves social problems like this one, it may help: mandate that a button on the phone be assigned to texting "Driving. Will respond later" and don't penalize people for pressing it, much the same way it's not explicitly illegal to turn off your radio while in motion.
They have been mandating safety features in cars for a long time. Seat belts are required, air bags are required, and I am sure there are plenty of other safety requirements on automobiles. It is time to make cell phone jammers mandatory in cars, just make the things inoperable.
Even before cellphones, cars were killing tens of thousands of people (in the United States) per year. Just ban driving, and the dangers of driving-while-TXTing go away.
Historically, those deaths have been worth the necessity of driving cars around (even on unnecessary trips - a paradox?). We're nearing the point we could make cars that drive themselves. Expensive? Risky? Absolutely. Impossible? Not worth saving tens of thousands of lives per year?
Unfortunately, the miracles of modern medicine have made such ideas, while highly appealing, incredibly unlikely.
That's a fairly strong conclusion to make: what about increased use of texting in the market, increasing numbers of licensed drivers having grown up with text messaging, increasing number of mobile phone owners?
And also - the laws aren't making people hide their texting whilst driving, the fact that they're worried about penalties is. Surely most of these places have a "driving without due care and attention" law anyhow? In which case, the problem isn't that there's a specific law but the threat that police might crack down on drivers who aren't concentrating for some reason - including but not limited to texting. Targetting drivers who aren't paying attention is surely not something we'd want to give up ... ?
Allow Police to monitor somehow all texts sent to towers near the highway, somehow pinpoint the offending vehicle via satellite or whatever and mail them a fine.
Hear hear. If you're moving at constant velocity, it's impossible for the accelerometer to tell. Ask anyone who understands Einstein's special relativity.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
In Germany if you get caught driving with a BAC above a certain level, your license is forfeit and you don't get it back until you can prove, through a battery of psychological and other tests, that you no longer have a drinking problem.
Replace "drinking" with "texting," and I think we have a solution.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I suspect that the type of person who texts while drives is very susceptible to the "It will never happen to me" mentality that makes after-the-fact punishments fail as a deterrent.
I was just getting used to stupidity as an additive to the water supply, and now it's available as a rock salt. FYI, from what I've seen on bad TV shows, the pursuit of stolen vehicles does nothing for public safety, either. Perhaps apprehending pedophiles at gun point also carries unacceptable risk.
Where exactly does "unintended" fit into this? Where is the data that any kind of impingement on the addictive behaviours of narcissistic scoff-laws doesn't end badly?
My attitude is that people determined to behave like children need to be treated like children. Less autonomy. This could take many forms, such as a vigilance camera pointed at the driver's eyes. Of course, this would not be abused by law enforcement. No one sees that coming.
You are involved in an automobile accident while texting/talking, you're responsible for all damage done (if both of you were doing something stupid, you can share the blame). Someone dies, it's jail for you. (Oh, and in case you ask, if someone hits you while you were texting, it's still your fault.)
Text all you want, just be willing to face the consequences.
Texting detector for partol cars. You could probably make a mint if you can invent one.
Set cars to decelerate when they sense that the driver's eyes are not on the road (for more than the split second needed to check mirrors, etc.). That solves a manner of inattentive driving.
I heard that in China, texting-while-driving is punishable by roadside suspension, then execution. I'll bet that would make people think twice!
You're plotting a growing number of individuals who are using texting more and more over time.
It's not STATIC.
Thus, it is both possible (and probable) that anti-texting laws reduce casualties from texting and driving AND that the total number of texting accidents INCREASED.
Please go back and relearn Statistics, MSM.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
'failure to pay time and attention'. They could hand out millions of tickets for texting based on that. But then, that would be efficient and get the job done. Clearly there is no room for that kind of logic in the current system.
Seriously - how stupid can people get. I *never* understood why anybody would think texting is safer than just calling, which is a hazard in itself. Driving is an activity that requires all of your concentration, all of the time. Most people think it is ok because they keep comparing the concentration levels required to the average reaction time required - which is wrong, it is the PEAK reaction time which is relevant. You might not need millisecond reaction time when going in a straight line on the highway on a daily basis- but that INSTANTLY changes when you or any of the cars around you hit an unexpected obstacle, or slippery surface.
Evolution in action (to answer the last question). Nothing to do but wait.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Something to the effect of 'Careless and Imprudent Driving'?
The music fan is reminded me of the plane crashes that killed Buddy Holly et al in 1959 and key members of Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1977. Pilot error was a contributory factor to the crashes, and something seems poetic in the sense that the pilots of the respective planes were amongst the fatalities.
[This was not flying drunk, but rather other critical mistakes]
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
while driving so help me I'm going to smash their window with my club, grab that phone or blackberry from them and shove it up
where the sun don't shine. Hopefully the Lion battery will then explode.
Yet another example of punishing the guilty instead of the innocent. You want to stop dangerous texting? Punish those who get in wrecks under existing manslaughter or other applicable laws that kill someone while doing it. Don't ban the innocent from it. Think of catching dolphins in a tuna net. That's what laws like this do. Prohibition was similar. Banning alcohol caused a massive increase in crime and removing the ban stopped the mobsters of the era cold almost over night.
Punish people if they cause an accident...not because they *might* cause one.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
I say we take a note from MADD and give prison time. I mean, surely we must stop this inanity where millions of people's lives are put in danger because of driving under the influence of a phone!
I mean, if we send people to prison for being having an open beer in the back seat which the driver hasn't drank or might not even know about, then surely we should send people to prison for playing with their radio! I mean as it stands right not, you can get cited for not paying attention to the road and playing with your radio, but that requirement puts people's lives in danger! Think of the children's lives! That 2 million accidents a year this causes! That 2 million plus children!
Surely introducing people to disease, rape, and violence while putting their children in receiving homes is WAY less dangerous to society then texting while driving!
The ban itself is not a problem... the enforcement is flawwed, if they can hide that they are texting.
Penalties should be even more severe for looking down while driving than for texting. We need law enforcement officers recording drivers at random places with hidden cameras, in a way that we can detect someone looking down.
If someone looks down, for more than a 1.2 seconds, while the vehicle is motion, and their vehicle is travelling more than 1 foot per second, then they are busted. This needs to be enforced more aggressively and at more places than simply looking for someone blatantly texting.
We need advertising campaigns that will convince people that 'trying to hide it' will not only fail to reduce the chance they are caught, but will actually make things worse for them.
Maybe we need to by law require cell phones emit a detectable signal when buttons on the front are being pushed, and law enforcement officers will record those signals as proof that the driver was texting; since the signals required to be emitted could be designed to contain information about which letter/number key is being pressed.
Rather than just pick up the phone and hold it to your head, you have to take your eyes off the road and screw around with a bluetooth device, because you didn't remember to pair it when you got in.
As it has been, as it is now, as it will always be. Ah-men. So, drink up (hide it) or text up (hide it), Darwin makes no distinction. You are still an organ ginder, yes?
When a criminal murders someone & there are witnesses, he typically kills the witnesses also.
If there weren't anti-murder laws, he wouldn't have to kill the witnesses.
Since it's more dangerous than drunk driving, the punishment should be about the same as drunk driving.
First offense in California: 3-5 years probation, $390 to $1000 fine+court costs of about $1800, 6 month loss of license, traffic school, 48 hours mandatory jail time, installation of an ignition interlock.
Second offense: same, but 2 year loss of license and between 96 hours and 30 days of jail time
Sounds fair and reasonable to me.
Support SETI@home
This is stupid. Of course they should ban in, you could use this logic on anything and nothing would ever change.
Plus even if texting while driving related deaths increase at first, sooner or later they'll go down when most of the idiots are dead.
1) Use gps to determine average speed over the 30 seconds on either side of a text message being sent.
2) Record the speed, time, and location in a database for a week or two.
3) Require that cars record the time of airbag deployment.
4) Anyone who is in the driver's seat of a car during a reported accident has the database checked against the time of the accident as reported by car's airbags.
5) Anyone who sent a text while moving 20 mph or faster within 5 minutes of being in a car accident is publicly hanged in the city square for everyone to see.
Any thoughts?
"A new study has found that various state laws that ban texting while driving might actually make the roads more dangerous. ... The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving ...."
Great, lets do this with all the laws currently on the books, bank robbing sounds like a great first place to start, lets make it legal to rob banks, because as it is now, the law makes people use force or deceit or subversion to get money which makes that pursuit quite dangerous, so if the law isn't working, and it endangers the public then repeal it, yes!
And in answer to this: "So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?""
I suggest cutting the end off of a finger each time they're caught breaking the law.
I see, so your game, here, is to ignore all the studies and assume your gutfeel is right.
Uhuh.
How *very* compelling...
What studies? The poster I replied to didn't cite any study - he simply claimed that "studies show...".
Could you provide some specifics from "all the studies" to back up the claims made by the poster I responded to? I mean, it would certainly be more convincing that a huffy attitude.
You know, when younger drivers were not permitted to drive with their friends in the car, kids started riding in the trunk.
Wrong answer. It seems that for today's population, texting is more important than driving. This always-online trend is going to continue.
Possible solutions:
-> Car-pooling. Everyone but the driver can text
-> Usable public transit. Everyone can text
-> Commercialization of Urban Challenge winner: Cars that just drive themselves.
I believe if the money spent on ridiculous policies was spent improving alternatives, people would choose those.
I choose public transit or taxis.. precisely because I can have a phone call, text, review documentation.. and leave the mundane tasks like actually driving to others or machines.
I also own a car, enjoy driving and drive quite aggressively. That's for my enjoyment, and almost never in heavy traffic - which is why you're most prone to text anyways.
So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?
It's called common-fucking-sense. As I get older it seems to be becoming a a rarer commodity. Has anyone else(people with less than two decades of life experience need not apply) noticed this? Or is it I am becoming more cynical in my old age? I swear the human race appears to be getting dumber and dumber.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
(Posting as A/C for obvious reasons -- although I know this post will get lost in the hundreds of /. comments)
I do it. I text and drive... the difference is that I live in a place that other vehicles are scarce (officially 1.76 people per square km of land for my Province -- which should be pretty obvious if you are from Canada)
I don't do it in any of the larger cities... mostly on the highway. Most of the time there is a 45min to an hour drive between towns. Instead of talking on the phone and racking up the long distance bill I choose to text.
I am a young person and I have a young family. We like to keep in touch on a regular basis. I'm always cautions in the sense that if I know there are hills or curves coming up, I will put the phone down and concentrate on the road.
I'm certainly not a stupid person and I do understand the risks of texting and driving, however I feel I am more at risk by other people out there who are doing even /worse/ things than texting while driving. So it's a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't... So I will continue to text and drive simply because if I'm going to go out in a car accident, I promise you it won't be because of my neglect but for some other reason (like some dumb cunt doing her hair while driving).
[/confession]
Over here in Europe, we have trains, buses and trams, and guess what, schmuck ? They MOVE!
It's actually quite nice to catch up on phone calls when I'm in the train, thank you.
Just how is your magic "tech" solution going to account for sending a text on a bus to say that there's roadworks and I'm going to be 10 minutes late to the meeting?
Don't stick any jellybeans up your nose.
Remember the real reason for the ban on texting - income! A texter is a happily distracted driver. They're not speeding, they're not driving aggressively, they're not doing one of the things easy to spot and ticket for. This is dangerous because it interferes with a vital revenue stream, and that's why texting is not allowed.
This problem will solve itself in the long run. The texters will all have car insurance bills so high that they will no longer be able to afford a car, and can no longer drive. That or they'll naturally select themselves out of existence.
I prefer the idea of permanently equipping every steering wheel with a giant spike directed at the driver's chest. Now who's gonna risk even a fender bender for the sake of a little text-gossip?
We don't need new laws, we need to enforce the ones we have.
LEOs should be actively enforcing reckless and/or careless driving statutes.
I'm a little surprised by the visceral reactions in nearly every comment on this article, so much that I feel compelled to play devil's advocate. I suspect people are picturing a mindless twit, cruising down the highway with both hands on a messaging device and eyes down, slowly drifting out of his or her lane. But I doubt most people engaging in "texting" in some form fit this stereotype. Many people are just sending or receiving one or two messages. "Pick up milk on the way home." "Which exit do I need to take?" "Something's happened, meet me at the hospital."
The danger posed by this type of distraction is completely dependent upon the situation. Are you on a rural highway with excellent visibility and no traffic for miles? Are you just glancing down to read a single message? Are you replying with a simple "ok" acknowledgement? It is possible to use a device like this with less distraction than changing a radio station. Not all "texters" are engaging in truly risky behavior.
But beyond that, if this is something you want to stop, you need to consider the psychology of the texter. Sending or receiving a message can take all of two seconds. It's hard enough convincing people that they need to pull over to take a phone call. For the maneuvers needed to actually take your car off of the highway and pull over to send or receive a text message, you've probably spent just as much time with your eyes not on the road in front of you than you would have spent just taking/sending the message on the highway, and you've lost 2 minutes to save yourself 2 seconds of distraction. And you're surprised that people don't do this?
(Note that I'm not going to touch the class of texter that's just driving around exchanging 50 banal texts with their boyfriend/girlfriend. I'm more concerned with someone that needs to take/send one or two text messages that may be relatively important to them.)
Penalizing something that people perceive to be so trivial isn't going to work. I can glance down at my radio for 2 seconds and achieve the same distraction as I'd get glancing down at my phone for 2 seconds, yet the law (and many of the commenters here) would punish me for the latter and not the former. What we need to do is make communication safer while driving. Why isn't my messaging device integrated with my car? My car knows when it's driving, and I can identify myself to my car. This would allow a "Do Not Disturb" setting, or automatic filtering of unimportant messages until I'm done driving. A heads-up display would be another great way to bring up urgent messages with a minimum of distraction. Android phones already have voice recognition, so there's a great way to respond too without needing to take your eyes and your hands away from the task of driving.
If roads were private, different roads would have different texting policies and people would have the choice of whatever they wanted. Which ever road had the the safest policy would get more business and then other roads would follow suit in order to stay competitive.
GPS enabled phones know when they're moving.... Disable the texting feature.!!
Sign me up for the texting, phoning, no-eating, high-occupancy-vehicle, no-drivers-under-21, smoking, no-speed-limit lane please.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
The same bastards that endanger your life by road texting, against the laws of the land and common sense, will invariably opt for the no-text road... then text!
Our problem is not texting, but bastards.
This isn't a texting problem per se, but an expression of the fact that U.S. citizens in general are rarely trained to drive properly. In European countries passing driver education is mandatory. It often takes several months to get through the courses on a part time basis - they're tough. And you pay a hefty price to get through those courses (usually in the thousands of dollars). Driving is NOT a right. Its a privilege. When you get behind the wheel you are stepping into one of the most dangerous instruments that every other citizen has to face while you are behind that wheel. But we treat driving like its child play. The vast majority of driver education courses and tests in the U.S. are a joke. Until we take the responsibility of driving more seriously, we will never solve the problem of incompetent drivers doing things while driving that only a certified idiot would do.
The technology exists to prevent texting if the phone is traveling at more that 5 MPH. But what if it's being used by a passenger? On a bus?
How about having the police automatically log the time/location of any accident or infraction and having the info cross-checked against the driver's cell phone billing. Just remember not to allow your spouse to text with your phone while you're driving. My wife was nearly killed in an accident where another driver left his lane for no apparent reason. I'd love to know if he had a phone in his hand.