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Quantifying the Risk of Texting Drivers
An anonymous reader writes "More than 5000 people die each year as a result of being distracted while driving, and a new study indicates that teens and cell phones make for the most volatile combination. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that of all drivers under 20 involved in fatal crashes, 16 percent were distracted — the highest proportion of any age group. 'Shockingly, texting drivers took their eyes off the road for each text an average of 4.6 seconds — which at 55 mph, means they were driving the length of a football field without looking,' said David Hosansky."
When cycling home I was passed by a driver texting on her phone. A few hundred yards later there was an intersection with a long red light and I asked her to keep her eyes on the road. She carried on texting and had to make an effort to look up every so often to check if the light was still red. Presumably she was texting "lol cyclist tld me to stp". It seemed like an accident waiting to happen.
You miss the point. Read the article, please, before commenting on it, it really helps. What Elvis, rock&roll, D&D and video games have with driving? Nobody said that accidents caused by texting and driving are worse than accidents caused by eating a burger and driving. What the article does say is that 16% of accidents caused by drivers under 20 is caused by distraction, and specifically that "among the various distractions, ranging from talking with passengers to adjusting the radio, texting while driving was particularly perilous: a 2009 study focusing on drivers of larger vehicles and trucks concluded that texting raised the risk of a crash by 23 times compared with nondistracted driving". It admits also that "even talking proved to be dangerous" and that "the distractions don't stop with cellphones; carmakers are adding new technologies to the dashboard, such as Web browsers and GPS units". It's also interesting that "a poll last year found that 59 percent of adult drivers admitted to talking on a handheld cellphone while behind the wheel, and 37 percent said they engaged in texting". So even the average driver admits that texting is more dangerous than talking on the phone while driving. But you're probably not an average driver. You're a superdriver. Until you crash into somebody while texting.
Do you feel any different about your friend's death knowing dude was texting or trying to eat a fast food burger? We are being extremely heavily propagandized that death from texting is horrifically worse than death by burger/cd/radio/8 track/plain ole daydreaming/being lost/reading a old fashioned paper map/reading a GPS map.
Distractions of any kind increase the risk of having an accident. Texting while driving is a relatively new phenomenon and many people are not yet conscious of how much it increases the odds of having an accident. It's not propaganda to point that out.
My work is directly related to accidents (I do statistical modelling of extreme events in reinsurance) and believe me that when you have to study "dumb" accidents caused by reckless driving, texting, alcohol or simply excessive speed (1) you fully understand the motives behind what you call "propaganda". People, often kids or young adults which are hit by death, vegetative states, para- or tetraplegia, amputated limbs, ... these are the consequences of accidents and they happen every day. Believe me that when you are exposed to those horrors on a daily basis you see things a little differently. And I have a relative distance between myself and the victims, I can only hardly imagine having to go to the scene of the accident or having to judge such cases all day.
Those campaigns may be shocking or seen as demagogy, but they merely translate a reality which fortunately most people don't have to be confronted to every day. Its not propaganda, its reality.
(1) Excessive speed relative to the traffic increases the odds of an accident exponentially and there is also an exponential relationship between speed and the consequences of the accident; reason why the combined distribution is often Pareto-like.
Whatever the youth are interested in will be demonized.
As texting while driving is clearly dangerous, this is irrelevant.
The ability to prove exactly how the guy was goofing off is supposed to invoke moral outrage in me.
No, it is the act of putting others in grave danger for no good reason that is considered immoral.
What should be illegal is being impaired while driving. Outlawing individual distractions is an endless task, and opens the door to wrongful prosecution.
Sure, texting while driving is stupid. On the one hand: Just how is a cop going to prove that is what you were doing? Maybe you were looking at a map. On the other hand, by outlawing it, cops can accuse you of texting any time they see you with a phone in your hand, or see you looking down rather that at the road.
Here's another example: why should it be illegal to have an alcoholic beverage open in a car? If you are not intoxicated, what difference does it make if you choose to drink your after-work beer on the way home? Why is this more dangerous that drinking it in a bar and then driving home?
The law ought to be: if you are driving safely, fine. If you are not, you can be pulled over. If you are in an accident, and were provably distracted (by anything), this may play a role in the assignment of fault.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Texting while driving has actually been demonstrated to be worse than drunk driving in some experiments.
I'm sure it is worse in most cases - unless you are very drunk...
Texting requires a higher level of multitasking and most drivers have not been trained to text while driving, nor do they practice (under controlled circumstances!) doing it till they are very good at it. BUT I believe a small percentage of people (not all) can learn to text while driving safely.
So perhaps they should: ;) ).
1) Try to train all learner drivers to text and talk while driving, and have them fail under controlled circumstances. Whether they get good enough or not they will be more aware of how dangerous and difficult it is (especially after killing many dozens in driving simulators).
2) Then have two different driving exams and licenses - if you want the license to text and drive you have to pay more, and you have to pass a very difficult exam (paying for each try!) involving texting while driving (pass = zero spelling mistakes, zero driving mistakes, and not take too long for both driving and texting) and similar difficult stuff. If you pass, you get a different driving license and get to put a special sticker on your car (like the "handicapped" sticker except we're handicapped compared to you
With that license if you do crash while texting, and it's your fault, you still get the same penalty as everyone else. But the cops can't book you if you do not crash or break any other laws while texting or being on the phone. They can pull you over if you do not have that sticker on- just show them your license. So drive safely and you'll be fine.
People might say it's elitist, but if you are good enough to pass such a test, the rest of the drivers on the road (including me) will be a greater danger to you than you to us!. I would be very happy if more drivers on the road could drive that well. In contrast I see many drivers who can't even stick to their lane when they're not even on the phone or doing anything else but driving.
p.s. some jealous people would probably key your car if you display the sticker...
You know what else is equally dumb, but has gotten a free pass? Touchscreen interfaces in cars.
Not just touchscreens - UI design for cars in general, especially any sort of "multifunction" button that requires you to look at a display in order to know what it is going to do.
Pretty much all car audio design is crap in that respect. Personal favourites that I have run in to (or have nearly made me run into things) include:
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.