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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?"
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
Sore, go inspire some rapists not to rape and some bank robbers not to rob banks. And while you are at this, could you also inspire some politicians not to take bribes? kthxbye
I've already got a name for such roads: slaveways (as opposed to freeways).
Okay, okay, so I stole it from Greg Bear.
I guarantee you that anything that keeps eyes on the road is less distracting than the need to look at a screen and (with modern smartphones) navigate the touchscreen and menus. Keep the senses that matter on the road and muscle memory will help, even if the mind is distracted. (Hint: What's the difference between a dialog with a text-to-speech smartphone and one or more passengers in the car?. My guess is not much. My other guess is that many of these studies involved a single occupant of the vehicle. In that case, any non-road stimulus would increase distraction. Duh.)
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
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.
Actually, I don't think you can make that claim. Drunk individuals in an auto accident typically fare better because they are relaxed when it occurs. The rigidity of form causes a great deal of harm. Also there's got to be some factoring of seatbelts that the drunks aren't probably wearing. 'Thrown clear' really does happen in a non-trivial amount of accidents.
There are actual numbers, I'm sure, but I'm confident they'll play out as 'apples-oranges', or at least 'apples-crab apples'.
Ban privately owned vehicles, and repossess all of them. Use the money to build up public transit.
That's at least partially bogus, though. Or are we to believe that texting-drivers aren't capable of pulling out in front of someone, running off the road, straying into the oncoming lane, etc?
Your same logic could be applied to people who speed or run redlights.
You're ignoring the data, and it's even linked in the summary above. Similarly, look into the amount of harm that red light cameras cause.
In any case, on the topic, you're going to need to demonstrate why 'punish after' isn't somehow worse than the current laws have made things. Because what you're advocating is reality in many places, and in those places it has made the situation more dangerous, rather than less.
Pesky summary, I know, I know...
No. No exceptions if you are behind the wheel. If you are the driver, you must be fully aware of the environment around you at all times. Your responsibility does not stop when your vehicle is temporarily stopped in the middle of the road at a light.
Don't be a prude. What's that driver supposed to do about the oncoming danger when stopped? Kick in the hoverjets?? I for one am not driving a James Bond car, and would rather be killed by surprise than see it coming...
Besides, distracted people aren't always as "stopped" as they think they are.
Texting at a full-stop is completely safe. Why should my ability to do this be infringed because some asshole doesn't know the difference between 'stop' and 'go'?
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I am with you on that. Honestly, I HATE this whole "can't be done" thing. I have texted while driving, I have seen other people do it...and this study validates one thing that I noticed... technique matters.
You hear that people take their eyes off the roads for "4 seconds.... enough time to cross a football field".
Seriously? I have never taken my eyes off the road for 4 seconds to txt, except at a VERY LONG stop light. When I was... stopped. That is crossing a football field every.... divide by zero error length of time.
Usually the way I did it (I really don't do it often, and only have ever done it maybe 5 times ever), is to raise the phone UP so that I can still see the road in my peripheral vision, check the road ahead, make sure everything is moving smooth and I have plenty of room in front of me and to the sides, and then... only then.... look and hit the next letter on the phone.... then go back to the road.
It takes a minute or two to send a txt this way, but, its pretty safe. I never have to take my eyes off the road for more than 1 second because all I am doing is essentially verigying the last letter and orienting my finger, and I am right back to the road.
But no... we can never admit that an issue might be more complicated than simple black and white statements or that some people may have skills that others don't, or others need to learn. Honestly, I would mandate that driving classes TEACH how to use a phone or other device when driving.
WHy? because you have to accept REALITY and the reality is that people will do what they want and try to skirt the law. There will always be some new wizbang thing that distracts people, people will be distracted by more than phones, more than texting. So... teach to the reality of the situation!
Its far better than more and more restrictions that don't work and have unintended consequences... like making the activity MORE dangerous!
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
As it turns out, talking over a phone is more distracting than talking with someone sitting in the car. There are multiple reasons: 1. Someone in the car with you can and will respond to the dynamically-changing environment as you do. If something unexpected happens, they will usually stop talking. 2. In fact, someone in the car may notice something important, and notify the driver (either by shutting up or pointing it out), thereby partially mitigating the distraction they cause by talking.
Why would someone in the car with you, engrossed in conversation with you and without the responsibility of driving, react to the situation faster than you? This doesn't sound at all realistic.
3. A phone conversation requires more of your attention because you have to make up for the deficiencies of the data channel (phones have lower audio quality than real life, you can't read their body language (even out of the corner of your eye, you can get a feel for a person's mood), etc.).
You can usually get a feel for a person's mood by the tone of their voice as well - I'd say a much better feel than you can get by whatever information leaks in through your peripheral vision.
4. Shared context makes communication more efficient, thus requiring less mental effort (this is why, even in this day and age, people generally want to meet face-to-face).
While this is undoubtedly true, you still haven't made any case that people can't share a context equally as well over the phone as they can with some person sitting next to them while they drive.
5. Studies have shown that it takes humans more mental effort to think/interact with people/data they believe is remote as compared to people/things they think are local. In one study, they measured reaction times and errors in a driving simulator when people were either using an "in-car GPS" giving them instructions or a "satellite data-feed" giving them instructions. Even though both sets of instructions were identical (including latency, etc.), the mere perception that the "satellite data-feed" was non-local caused people to devote more mental effort to it, which increased driving accidents. A non-intuitive result, perhaps, but human mental machinery is finely tuned not for the tasks we currently expect it to perform.
I can't argue with this, since I have no study to prove otherwise. But I know that I've been involved in conversations while driving that consumed so much of my attention that afterward I couldn't recall the process of driving home. The same has occurred when I've found something interesting on the radio. I'd like to see some studies comparing how all of these activities, which aren't outlawed, impact driving and how they compare to the impact of phone usage while driving.
6. Initiating and finishing a phonecall requires much more attention than stopping/starting a conversation with someone sitting beside you. (Unlike fidgeting with a radio, answering a phonecall requires immediate action not at a moment of the driver's choosing.)
Voice commands. "Dial wife". How hard is that? And answering a phonecall doesn't require immediate action - if I'm shifting from first to second as I accelerate from a stop, I'm certainly not going to interrupt that to answer a call. Most people who use phones while driving do so in precisely the same situations in which they fidget with a radio - cruising along, with no anticipated interruptions.