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Smartphones More Dangerous Than Alcohol, When Driving
judgecorp writes "The Institute of Advanced Motorists in the UK has carried out live tests which prove that using smartphones impairs driving ability more than drug or alcohol use, making reaction times 37.6 percent slower (PDF). The result is a big concern since a quarter of drivers admit to sending texts from their phones while driving. 'Young people have grown up with smartphones and using them is part of everyday life. But more work needs to be done by the government and social network providers to show young people that they are risking their lives and the lives of others if they use their smartphones while driving.'"
I can text, check my Facebook, AND drive with no problems. I think I'm one of only about 20 world-wide that can do it.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I don't stare at my beer or have a conversation with it. Drinking and driving is a minimal effort hobby.
Article translation: We overestimated the dangers of alcohol on driving.
All driving is more dangerous in the UK, because they insist on driving on the wrong side of the road.
Siri, how close is the nearest hospital? Is it too far to walk there with one leg broken from a car accident?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Does this risk change if you consider a sufficiently long period of time? Presumably for a given trip you spend more time intoxicated than you do checking or responding to a message on your phone.
Isn't using your phone in any fashion without a hands-free kit already illegal in the UK?
It amazes me that so many people seem to believe the proximity of one's hand to one's ear is the problem when it comes to making phone calls while driving.
#DeleteChrome
Really? The headline reads "Trooper was on laptop moments before crash"
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
Yes, this sort of behaviour is already against the law. It isn't widely enforced, though, and way too many people still do it. It needs to become socially unacceptable, the same way drunk driving now is.
As an aside, driving while using a hands-free kit is hardly any safer. It's just harder to detect and penalise. Unfortunately, that means the government here in the UK didn't outlaw it at the same time, thus sending a clear (but completely wrong) message that "The government says driving using a hands-free kit is safe!". Of course, lots of companies who sell hands-free kits had huge displayboards in stores the day these laws came in playing off that misunderstanding, and to this day a lot of people think they're safe driving and talking as long as they've got hands-free.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I don't stare at my beer or have a conversation with it.
Clearly you need to start drinking better beer.
I don't stare at my beer or have a conversation with it.
Clearly you need to start drinking better beer.
Or just more of it.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The Mythbusters showed that years ago. It was actually quite shocking how similar the test results were between someone who was substantially drunk and someone just talking on the phone (got even worse when they were texting).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I've on occasion attempted to text while driving. Yes, I know, bad me, but unlike others I do realize how terribly risky it is. So I only do it at red lights now. However there are a few things that make it even more tempting to do while in motion:
Swype keyboard (and others) - with decent enough recognition, you can almost thumb-swype a whole message without looking. Corrections are a pain though.
Dictation (Siri, Evi, and speech-to-text) - actually works quite well.
But they all take more concentration from the road than they should.
I think combining a HUD with dictation might just be the way of the future. We need to get these systems developed and studied before we blanket-ban messaging and driving.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I've heard that it is or was common for Japanese domestic cars to have TVs installed. It seemed strange to me when I heard about it, because I certainly couldn't keep attention to both a TV screen and the road. On the other hand it would probably be easier to regulate attention to that versus a phone conversation where I'm actually pressured to perform two tasks at the same time.
Emotions! In your brain!
I think it just says
reaction_time(smartphone-user) > reaction_time(drunken-driver)
Society has now successfully established that reaction_time(drunken-driver) leads to more accidents (especially troublesome because you are not just injuring yourself with your stupidity, but other, innocent people are killed).
The logical conclusion is that the danger of smartphones is large and people are not aware of it (unlike with drinking or phoning). While we are also now kindof aware that calling while driving is a bad idea, those two don't have a real stigma yet (like NZ ads "If you drink and drive --- you're a bloody idiot").
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
If God didn't want us driving a manual transmission car whilst texting on a smartphone he wouldn't have given us knees.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
More laws on the way - I can't wait
Already laws. Just get them enforced.
Couple days ago I'm sitting in my car in a parking lot and nearly creamed by an SUV-driving phoner. Tricky enough on the street, but parking lots are mazes where unpredictable things are the norm - people walk out of nowhere, car suddenly backs out, car suddenly comes around blind corner, etc. You need to be on your toes there - besides, parking lot accidents are paid for by YOU -- fault, in my experience is never assigned on private property or public parking lots. Tough beans, even if you were not at fault. If you are at fault, you may find yourself taken to court for whatever your insurer is unwilling to cover.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
No. Any distraction, even with a dumb phone, is a distraction. Driving is a full-time job, requiring 100% of the drivers attention.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I predict that factors like this will be the impetus for society ultimately being OK with switching over to computer driven vehicles. Not saying that's good or bad, just predicting.
And if you're a dead victim of their "choice"?
Laws can be a way for society to set clear limits on acceptable behavior. Currently people aren't seriously considering the risks they're taking with others safety. That has to change - soon.
...since I use it extensively as a GPS/navigation aid, as do many other people. It allows me to focus on the road more when I am driving in unfamiliar places.
For many, it is also a music player (which has been a standard component in cars for decades). I doubt that hitting a "play" button to launch a playlist with thousands of songs *once* provides more distraction than going through a CD wallet every hour.
On the other hand, SMS messaging has been present on pretty much cell phones since the beginning, and you could access the WAP web over GPRS from an old Siemens over a decade ago.
My point is that many people use smartphones in a car in a way that doesn't make their driving any more dangerous, whereas you could use an old phone in a way that does. Don't blame the device, blame the activity (e.g. communicating by text while driving). While the article actually delivers this point, the title of the article (and the post) does not. The title should have been Using social networks while driving is more dangerous than alcohol.
If you want to get hit by some idiot driver who is using their cell phone in a parking lot. Because that almost happened to me a couple of days ago, he would have hit me and then ran into a couple parked cars. If I hadn't noticed he was looking down at his phone and not looking forward. 3 mph or 30 mph, it doesn't matter, it still dangerous.
So passengers are not allowed to use a phone? That's quite an over-reaction.
Society has now successfully established that reaction_time(drunken-driver) leads to more accidents (especially troublesome because you are not just injuring yourself with your stupidity, but other, innocent people are killed).
That's false. MADD proved .15 BAC lead to more accidents, then argued "lower is better" until the impairment from the legal limit is well below impairment from cell phones, radio, kids, rain on the windshield, and anything else ever measured. The conclusion should be that the current DUI levels are below measurable increase in risk.
Learn to love Alaska
There is a mountain of evidence that driving and using a phone at the same time is highly dangerous, and it has been growing steadily for a long time. This is about as clear-cut and one-sided an issue as you can get, and innocent people are getting seriously hurt and even killed as a direct result of the dangerous behaviour. Outlawing that behaviour isn't draconian, it's making good law in the interests of society based on a rock solid empirical evidence base. Please take your FUD elsewhere.
This is already illegal in the UK, BTW. The problem is more one of enforcement in this case.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Studies show that new laws improve state revenue.
Unfortunately there is little or no effort in trying to actually reduce the laws out there, because there is so much revenue is finding Law Breakers.
For example those No-Turn on Red Signs places right in the spot where if you are stopped at a red light the sign is parallel to your view so you cannot see the sign, so you may just turn on red, vs. putting them next to the red light, like they do in areas where there is actually a major safety concern for turning on red.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Right. "All laws that take away rights are bad, except the ones I like, those are fine." Gotcha.
Just because a behavior is bad doesn't automatically mean that a law baning it is good. Will the law actually reduce the frequency of the behavior? To an extent that really outweighs the accompanying loss of freedom? And the misuse of the law by malicious government/cops/etc? And the cost of enforcement? It needs to be a net gain, with full understanding of all the ways it costs us when we goven more power to the government.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Accident statistics in the U.S. do not seem to support the supposed danger of driving while talking on cell phones. During the period when cell phones became wildly popular here, the automobile accident rate has dropped sharply. According to the Centers for Disease Control http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/mmwr_achievements.html/ "From 2000 to 2009, while the number of vehicle miles traveled on the nation's roads increased by 8.5%, the death rate related to that travel declined from 14.9 per 100,000 population to 11.0 and the injury rate declined from 1,130 to 722." Yes, there were other factors, like seat belt laws, but if cell phones were such a major danger, it's hard to believe deaths could have fallen that much at the exact same time they became ubiquitous.
Show me the massive increase in accidents and fatalities that have come along with the massive increase in cell phone usage. Then I'll believe there's a real correlation. The results of a controlled test designed to yield a certain result isn't useful data.
Here's the fatality list through 2009. It shows steady decreases in fatalities per mile driven.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Of course, that's 3 years old now, but still... there's been an increase in cell phone use through 2009, so if using a cell phone is as dangerous as drunk driving, I'd expect to see a big increase in the fatality rate, not a decrease.
And here's another flawed study (2010)... http://www.nsc.org/Pages/NSCestimates16millioncrashescausedbydriversusingcellphonesandtexting.aspx
They estimate that 25% of crashes involve the use of cell phones. Based on that, I would expect accident rates to increase (to a degree) along with cell phone usage. But they don't. Many states have banned cell phone use by drivers. In those states, shouldn't see a big decrease in accidents? Do we? I doubt it.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
A law against using a phone would just be used to harass people who are cheeky to the police, or because they are black.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
At least drunks go when the light turns green. And there are far fewer of them out there.
You need to be on your toes there - besides, parking lot accidents are paid for by YOU -- fault, in my experience is never assigned on private property or public parking lots. Tough beans, even if you were not at fault.
I can confirm that. I got broad sided in a supermarket parking lot some years ago by a guy in an SUV driving what seemed like 55 mph right though an intersection that had STOP painted on the pavement. The cop that arrived on the scene pointed out that, not only was that STOP on the pavement not a legal stop sign, the issues was moot, as the laws in general do NOT apply in parking lots. He could have been driving 100 mph. Ever since then I have an extra special disdain for anyone driving fast in parking lots...by which I mean that I get tempted to chase them down and beat the living shit out of them.
Well, technically either there is a right to drive or the states have co-opted the granting of that right for themselves. As drivers licenses have never been ruled unconstitutional, I guess it's the latter. But the absence of such a right in the U.S. Constitution actually implies that it might be a right, not that it isn't one!
Raisey-raison wrote :-
we overly obsess about the roads
News to me. I always had the impression that individuals (from the way they drive), the authorities and (most importantly) the media hardly gave a f@#k about road accidents unless one is particularly spectacular. If you worked in the industries I have (shipbuilding, railways and power) you would be struck by the contrast between the fanatical pursuit of safety at work (such as putting up a "Do not kick the fir cones!" sign by a group of fir trees on site), and the free-for-all on the roads outside.
There is a sign as you enter the site where I work : "Safety starts here". I once suggested to our Site Safety Officer that it should say "Safety Stops Here" as you drive out, because it does for most people.
A fatal road accident is unlikely to get more than a couple of column inches in a local paper, yet a railway accident (for example) killing anybody, or even no-one, is the subject of national news headlines for days, if not still coming up years later [Eg: The case of the Darwin Award contenders at Elsenham 7 years ago). Basically, it is because most people think they are too "clever" to have a road accident themselves, but on a train they feel at the mercy of the railway.
37.4 percent slower reaction times while texting, 26.5 percent while having a hands-free phone conversation, 21 per cent while under the influence of cannabis and 12.5 percent while at the legal limit for alcohol.
Everybody who does something else than drive while driving is an idiot.
Here in the Netherlands, just *holding* a phone will cost you 180 euros. I really do not understand why people think it is OK to text and drive.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
Whether or not laws against murder actually deter murder doesn't matter to whether or not their should be laws against murder. If an 27 year detention period is a detriment, but a 25 year one not, then you're having a useful discussion.
Texting while driving is really f'n dangerous to you, and to everyone else on the road. It kills people and causes significant material losses, so pretty obviously it warrants rules against it (those laws in many cases already exists, a study like this merely clarifies that they should apply to those existing laws). Beyond that it is a matter of degree as to what should or should not be done to keep people off the road. Texting while driving should be illegal, the question is what is the most effective enforcement mechanism to reduce it. A $7 fine? A $170 fine? a $1700 fine? Roadside seizure? (where the car is towed but still owned by the driver they can pick it up later), confiscation? Jail (for how long?).
If you can't reasonably decide if something is bad (e.g. swearing) then you can't reasonably compose laws about it, sure. But in the context of what you can do while driving, texting, talking on the phone (hands free or otherwise) it's clear it shouldn't be allowed.
This has significant implications for car manufacturers, which is less about criminal laws and more about regularly compliance. If you using a hands free phone while driving should be banned well car companies need to stop making hands free cell integration into their vehicles, *or* find a way that it will reduce the distraction effect.
Let's try some actual references with, you know, facts, and stuff.
Instead of just making stuff up.
Well if your "reasoning, depth perception and peripheral vision" are impaired at .06 BAC [src], things arguably relevant to driving, it makes sense to put the limit somewhere around .05 BAC. ... what more argument do you need to put it the DUI levels where they are now? [src]
Then if you double the risk of accidents at 0.05 BAC, and triple it at 0.1 BAC, with 0 BAC as a control
DUI is not exactly a new phenomenon that doesn't have enough studies yet.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I dont think talking is going to distract me (but i am well above average in every aspect) . And if you cant talk and drive at the same time, then your license should be taken away. that should be part of all the new driving tests. you have to call and talk to a memeber of your family for 10min while navigating the streets of San Francisco.
I don't care how above average you think you are. My car his been hit by people I'd consider very good drivers, but their attention was divided for just the amount of time necessary where opportunity to smash into my car was present. Nothing asserts reality like standing around waiting for the cops, while an angry motorist is glaring at you for your bone-headed driving distractions you bring upon yourself and ultimately inconvenience you and other unwilling participants.
Really. I've heard it time and again, and there isn't a day goes by around here where someone is hit or hitting. Often in the places you'd think it wouldn't happen - sitting in a stationary vehicle at a light when another ploughs into the back of you.
I'd like to see driving bans for the first offense. Try riding the bus for three months as a reminder it is a privilege, not a right to be able to drive a car.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
While you may have a right to travel, there is no right to drive and there never will be.
Driving is a privilege with the highest of responsibility, requiring you to never harm peoples lives or property.
Police have the right to pull any driver over for dangerous driving. Any reasonable distractions can be considered dangerous by the police and they should have full discretion on defining the risk posed by a distracted driver.
So the point of these new laws, is more to clarify and inform drivers that common behaviors are distractions that are considered illegal while driving.
If you need to be distracted, use a phone, text, or use any device other than the driving controls of your car, Do not drive.
Otherwise you will be making a premeditated decision to risk the lives of all the pedestrians and other drivers around you i.e. Murder not manslaughter.
Driving is the leading cause of accidental death by massive margins.
Maybe there isn't a law banning juggling while driving, but it will get you pulled over just the same.
Just the opposite -- if you make driving onerous enough, people will get around some other way, which usually involves more physical activity. More exercise means reduced deaths from CP disease can (somewhat) reduced deaths from cancer. It might not be the intended effect of the laws, and it might take really draconian and obnoxious laws (that would likely be repealed by an angry mob of voting drivers), but the estimates of death-from-car-induced-lack-of-exercise are higher than the estimates of deaths from car crashes. (Links, I know, you want them. Sigh. Later. I have to DRIVE home to transport a kid to soccer practice, maybe she'll let me use the bike to get her there, no irony in my life, no, not at all.)
So we've proven that diverted concentration is worse than lowered ability. I'll take the 'drunk' who can 'sober up' immediately thank you very much.
Reaction times might be slower, but the 2nd and 3rd and 4th reaction are going to be much much better than any drunk. It may be that the 1st is too much of a loss to be counteracted by the subsequent reactions, but someone who 'can' be in control would seem to a better bet than a drunk who simply can't be in control.
Besides cops do this every day, with the radio, laptops and overall observations of everything around them. The difference between cops and everybody else?
Training to do the multitasking properly. Adding new gadgets without any training is always going to cause problems.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I like your banning idea. works great, but add in 3 strikes and your DL is gone forever! and then people would actully listen and be better.
oh & my supurb driving skills have landed me wins in local races at Infineon raceway, as well as never have been in an accident that was my fault. only been hit once and that dude was drunk.. but i saw him coming and avoided a bad accident to where his car was totaled and I could drive away with my minor rear end damage. i guess those days at the race tracks have paid off.
I'm only guessing, but I'm thinking you weren't on your phone while driving at Infineon.
All it takes is once.
A good friend was runover by a driver, on a street with speed bumps. Speed isn't the only factor in accidents, just provides more kinetic energy. Try navigating a parking lot on Saturday afternoon while on a phone. I find it requires maximum alertness.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
it is a privilege, not a right to be able to drive a car
I disagree with your statement - specifically where you suggest that driving is a privilege. I hope that I'm not being too pedantic, but this notion is freely thrown around with very little thought, and it has always bothered me. As far as me being pedantic on a small point...this is Slashdot, after all...and besides, someone is wrong on the internet ;-)
Driving is as much a privilege as using a public library. Driving is not limited to a privileged class, and a drivers license cannot be arbitrarily revoked (or even suspended) without some sort of due process - even if it is only administrative due process. This is especially true in many parts of America where public transportation is nearly nonexistent - as are most forms of alternative transportation. In these remote areas, suspension of licensure for operating a motor vehicle on a public right-of-way can severely impact a person's ability to make a living - or even live on a day-to-day basis. For this reason (among others), suspension or revocation of drivers licenses is not to be taken lightly. This is the same for trade licensure - I wouldn't call being an electrician a privilege either.
Another way to look at it is that driving is no more a privilege than being free from incarceration. A person who breaks the rules risks losing their license to drive - similarly, rights to any other freedom can be taken away if societal rules are broken - e.g. sentenced to prison, where many rights are suspended. WIth this in mind, does that make living in a person's own home, or even walking on a sidewalk a privilege? I would argue that if driving is a privilege, then living where one chooses (within the law), free from incarceration is a privilege too.
This is something that we tell 16 year old children. As a minor - driving privileges, like television privileges, can be taken away arbitrarily. The reality is that with adults they cannot.
-Turkey
It's worse because a passenger is there with you and most passengers will naturally react to the surroundings and the driver's temperament, including knowing when to shut up and let the driver concentrate.
Misbehaving kids in the back can be a real problem, but it is impractical to ban all driving with kids on board and most of the time most kids aren't severely degrading the driver's performance. That is rather different to the situation where almost no-one actually needs to make a call while driving, and most of the time most calls will severely degrade the driver's performance.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You need to be on your toes there - besides, parking lot accidents are paid for by YOU -- fault, in my experience is never assigned on private property or public parking lots. Tough beans, even if you were not at fault.
... as the laws in general do NOT apply in parking lots. He could have been driving 100 mph...
In most states, certain laws do pertain to parking lots. The two that I can think of off the top of my head are DUI/DWI laws (which even pertain to your own driveway), and reckless driving (where a person is subject to citation/arrest for breaking contact with the pavement, loss of control, and excessive speed). In your case, a charge where a civilian witness sees a person driving 100 MPH would be difficult to substantiate, since it does not come from a person trained in speed detection (e.g. a police officer). Further, in your situation, while the officer would not criminally cite the other person, the police report should detail that they ran a stop sign, and violated right-of-way. This would make them civilly liable.
IANAL
-Turkey
If the law somehow increased the number of murders, it would be a stupid law. With murder it's hard to imaging such a law, but that's been a legitimate discussion with some of the drug laws.
So are you insinuating that texting laws increase the amount of texting while driving? If not, then how is your analogy relevant to the discussion whatsoever?
The worst thing we do in societies these days is outlaw stuff on the basis that it's "icky"
Yeah, that's not what's going on here. There is quantifiable damage done (to others) by people who abuse their phones while driving. Those that choose to engage in reckless (to others) activities should have to pay for their damage. Personal responsibility and all that.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I can't agree strongly enough with the statement that, if you're driving you shouldn't be doing anything else. I ride a bicycle frequently and if I get run over by a texting driver then I'm dead. If one of my two kids gets run over by a texting driver there won't be a straight-jacket strong enough. And police enforcement is a joke in the U.S. From what I have observed they'll run the occasional speed trap or alcohol enforcement exercise, but I see a lot less police presence on the roads these days and much more careless driving. I guess that cars have gotten so safe that law enforcement no longer need to do their job.
As another exemplary individual who is well above average in every respect, I certainly agree that talking isn't going to distract me either. Clearly we must rid the road of all of these simpletons who can't perform as mundane a task as talking on the phone while driving. After all, 100% of accidents are caused by other people. If only we could keep those other people off of the road you and I can relax and sip our caramel machiatos while carrying on a text conversation about the mundane simpletons who could never have our intellectual capacity.
+1 Disagree
It's also the nature of the communication. I hate phones because people just talk crap instead of just getting to the point. On a radio people get to the point a lot quicker without waffling on endlessly.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"