Slashdot Mirror
Why Cell Phone Bans Don't Work
sciencehabit writes "You can take the driver away from the cell phone, but you can't take the risky behavior away from the driver. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers who are nearly as prone to crash with or without the device. The findings may explain why laws banning cell phone use in motor vehicles have had little impact on accident rates."
This is the second major study calling into question the idea that talking on the phone while driving is vastly more dangerous, as dangerous as drunk driving.
In the other study, A Wayne State study by Richard Young, Ph.D, found that procedural errors in the seminal research vastly over estimated the risk.
The actual risk of talking while driving was 1/4 of what the earlier studies found, putting it right in line with just simply driving.
Indeed, according to Wayne State, "Five other recent real-world studies concur with his conclusion that the crash risk from cellular conversations is not greater than that of driving with no conversation.". "Tasks that take a driver's eyes off the road or hands off the steering wheel are what increase crash risk," said Young. "Texting, emailing, manual dialing and so forth -- not conversation -- are what increase the risk of crashes while driving."
While texting poses serious risks, simply talking on the phone appears to pose no more risk than simply driving. The present study found that:
"Cell phone bans have reduced cell phone use by drivers, but the perplexing thing is that they haven't reduced crashes,"
.
In spite of this, in a fit of political correctness, the author feels compelled in the last paragraph of the story to print a quote from someone who has done no specific research on phoning while driving, but he still fees competent to weigh in suggesting bans be followed by stiffer enforcement.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The reason why cell phone bans don't work is the same reason other bans don't work, because they aren't enforced enough or at all (from what I've seen). Good people give into temptation because other people are doing it and feel they can get away with it. Take that feeling away, people would stop. Granted, I agree there would always be offenders, but not nearly as many.
I mean, when I can check Slashdot while driving, what could go wr
Smeed’s law is an empirical relationship that predicts the number of deaths in traffic accidents in a country, normalized to the number of vehicles in it
See post from Vivek Haldar:
http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/10126017769/smeeds-law-for-programming
The article (and in fact most similar articles I have read) seem to take nothing into account regarding automatic and manual gearboxes. There is a massive difference between talking on a phone whilst changing gear and whilst driving an automatic car. It would be an interesting comparison and it is certainly far more dangerous in general to speak on a phone whilst driving a manual. Having to change gear whilst keeping a phone to your cheek (generally with your other hand) is magnitudes more dangerous than plodding along in an automatic...
Is there more risk of an accident if there is a passenger in the car, or someone who is talking on a hands free calling device? The person in the passenger seat can actually be more of a distraction than someone on the phone, so what will we do, limit vehicles to not have any passenger seats?
Focusing on cell phones because they are otherwise topical is a mistake because nay-sayers will always be able to argue that talking on a cell phone is no more dangerous than putting on makeup or leaning over to smack your kid in the back seat. Which is true. There are a million stupid and dangerous things that people do while driving.
However, in the push to make driving a consumption-heavy lifestyle and cars yet another arena for consuming various products and advertisements for even more products, the ship has pretty much sailed on acknowledging the fact that driving is inherently dangerous and that danger increases with every gadget and chatty passenger that you add to the equation.
>"new study, which finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers who are nearly as prone to crash with or without the device."
That partially doesn't surprise me. Typically, the same people that would allow themselves to be distracted by a phone or texting are going to be the same people that will allow themselves to be distracted by the radio, GPS, passenger, makeup, food, random thoughts, whatever. Conversely, there are people who tend to not allow distractions or are better able to ignore or cope with them. They might RELUCTANTLY use a phone while driving but don't allow the phone to be the primary focus and are FAR less distracted than others.
Just my observation, but it certainly looks like younger generations are growing up with less and less ability to focus, almost like ADD is rampant. Could be a side effect of having instant everything in their life and have no tolerance for having to work at something, concentrate on something, or be "disconnected" from others.
All that aside, I am not sure the methodology of the cited study is very scientific. For example- just ASKING people how often they use a phone while driving- yeah, that will be accurate. Anyway, there is no simple solution to the problem of distracted driving. Just banning phone use is not the answer. I don't know what the answer is, or if there is one... but it is certainly not going to be one thing.
and shut up if the driver needs to concentrate
Or, instead of what you are purporting to observe, it is more likely that there are few if any real penalties for driving while talking on a cell phone, and thus, as in the early days of seat belt laws, and driving while drunk laws - where it was more of a caution and nobody except minorities got busted for it - behavior has not yet changed.
As I recall, and I'm so old I used to tune my floppy drives with an oscilliscope and solder my own S-100 boards, it took almost ten years before strict seat belt license enforcement and penalties cause most drivers to change their behavior.
Ask not what they say the survey says, but instead what exactly is the survey measuring. Here endeth the lesson.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
One needs to get it in the right order.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This feels like a victory for the "correlation is not causation" camp, and it also helps me feel superior to more aggressive drivers in general. Two points for things I agree with! Definitely don't need to investigate the research any further.
The brain can multi-task 4 things at one time, driving a vehicle uses most of them. Add one or two distractions...BOOM!...accident. I've seen people using hands-free devices almost have an accident because the CONVERSATION was what was distracting them. They were taking their eyes off the road to stare at the phone while they were making their point. Lastly, insurance companies have found that, on average, an accident happens within 2 seconds of looking away from the road (fumbling for a dropped CD was the number one reason.).
While I dunno what's the level of risk of talking on cellphone while driving while compared to those who drive drunk, but I know one thing for sure ...
I've been in couple of my friends' vehicles and they really scare the shit out of me
Inside their car are new added distractions - from GPS map finder LCD screen to mini LCD/MP3 movie player, surrounding the driver seat
The already cluttered atmosphere of where the driver does the driving, because of these added gadgets, become even more cluttered
Please do not tell me that the combined effect from the LCD screens (GPS map finder, movie/MP3 player, cellphone, and so on, surrounding the vehicle driver, does not represent added distractions
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In spite of this, in a fit of political correctness, the author feels compelled in the last paragraph of the story to print a quote from someone who has done no specific research on phoning while driving, but he still fees competent to weigh in suggesting bans be followed by stiffer enforcement.
The person being quoted is D. L. Strayer, who a quick google scholar search reveals has done a proverbial shitload of distracted driving research, much of it focused on phone use.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What does eating on the phone have to do anything? And how would you do that anyway, especially while driving?
Look how well automation is working for the airlines. The safety record in recent years is unprecedented just by keeping the pilot away from the controls.
No, pilots still fly the planes. Most takeoffs and landings are done by real, live, meatspace pilots. Autopilots are used mid flight and have been for, oh, the last 40 years or so.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
... is because they are almost hopeless to enforce. Almost every state has banned text messaging while driving (with good reason because it is fucking dangerous to read and/or write messages while driving) yet it is seldom enforced. Drivers get away with it all the time because the chance of getting caught is quite nearly zero. Talking on the phone without handsfree - in states where it is required to use handsfree - is much easier to spot, though still not fined often.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I can think of several fundamental flaws with these kinds of studies...primarily the **complete lack of context or consistency**
List of factors that logically should be compared in a means test to 'texting while driving' in relation to cause of accidents:
> Applying make-up while driving
> Eating while driving
> Using [x device] while driving (some examples: car stereo, ipod, navigation system)
> Reaching for something
> Mental distraction (some people call these daydreams)
> Interpersonal distraction (some people call these passengers)...especially intense conversation of any kind
For the rest of time, any study that doesn't **start** with defining and comparing factors like this to existing data is **absolutely worthless**
Seriously...pseudoscience alert
Thank you Dave Raggett
Never would have guess a bad driver is still a bad driver
In Washington, it is illegal to drive while talking on a cell phone (meaning holding the phone to your ear)... UNLESS
So if you're old and can't year, you can drive while talking on your cell phone with it up to your ear. Or if it's on speaker phone you can hold it up to your ear. Otherwise you need a hands-free handset; as if using a hands-free set is somehow SO much better for you than holding the phone.
It's obviously a law designed to placate those demanding the law, while providing no real benefit to anybody.
I think I might have just pulled over and given my contact info to the people she hit, telling them I'd be happy to testify in court how she was driving recklessly with both hands full of food and a phone, in case they decide to sue her.
I don't have a link to it, but one of the studies done where I live shortly after they introduced the cell phone ban showed an INCREASE in cell-phone related accidents. The cause was soon found to be that instead of drivers texting/dialing with the phone in front of them (where they can see the road in the background), they were holding the phones next to their hip where police were less likely to notice what they were doing, which meant that instead of 30% of their concentration being on the road, 0% was.
Personally I'm against ANY cell-phone use while driving (unless fully hands free), but it was an interesting study none the less.
Tailgating to the extreme of less than one car length at highway speeds? Weaving in and out of traffic? Generally over-aggressive behaviour? Overloaded trucks flying down the fast lane? Dweebs on electric bikes going 20 clicks UNDER the speed limit? Naaah - that's too much like work.
Three Squirrels
I consider myself to be a safe driver. The ban on using cellphone driving has not prevented me from quietly using the cellphone. But hearing all that talk about 'using cellphone while driving is dangerous' has actually made me very careful while using the cellphone. I do not use it whenever the condition requires that I concentrate 100% on the road given the driving conditions at that time. . # High cellphone usage = lots of calls, either professional or personal = high stress levels = bad reflexes/focus = major risk of accident
What do you mean they don't work? These bans are important source of revenue for the government
Simply this:
Whenever I find someone driving less than 50MPH (80.4672KPH) in the fast lane who is less than 90 years old, it is someone with a cell phone in hand.
disclaimer: That is for daytime driving. After 2AM, there are often slow drivers who seem influenced by some other distraction.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Those as much distracting as phones and are used way more often.
Once a dumbass idiot, always a dumbass idiot--whether there's a cell phone to add to the distraction or not. Sounds plausible to me. I never did think a cell phone was needed to crash a car, only a driver's own stupidity and/or inability to keep from getting distracted. The cell phone just gives all the morons bonus points, possibility increasing the risk of crashing any time it's out and being used.
This is one of those cases in which correlation really does not imply causation. And never did, no matter how "obvious" the connection seemed to most people.
I have been aware of this situation for some time, due to some other statistics with which I became familiar.
But despite it being something of a cliche on Slashdot, it had to be said. Everybody said that it was "obvious" that cell phones caused accidents. But the correlation between accidents and cell phones has little or nothing to do with any actual cause.
The statistics have been telling us for a long time that the people who get into accidents while using cell phones tend to be distracted drivers, who would likely get into accidents anyway, distracted by something else, if a cell phone were not available.
It's easy. Now we know that we just need to ban anybody from driving who uses a mobile phone while driving.
We just had cause and effect backwards.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
there's plenty on the books already... get caught using a cell phone while driving, get done for driving without due care and attention... absolutely no need for a new cell-phone specific charge...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
While handsfree is obviously a far better solution than something you have to hold, the real risk is not that you will have an accident - most idiots on the road are regularly avoided by more sensible drivers who have their wits completely about them.
The risk is that if there is a dangerous scenario, you will respond more slowly if your brain is distracted, and you'll cause more damage to (yourself and) others.
This is one of the main reasons motor insurance for young men has historically been higher: it's not that men have more accidents, but that when they do it is accompanied by such insane behaviour that everyone comes out a fucking mess.
--
This is like doing a study on the probability of getting heart disease and the only study participants are taken from the post-op ward of the local cardiac center ...
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
From what I've experienced here in Ohio, people who talk on the cell phone while driving do so anyways even with the laws banning it.
The people who do this are the self-absorbed reckless fools who feel those sorts of laws apply to everyone but them. They are the kind of person that will nearly wreck into you while talking on the cell phone, then blame you for it. It's not them who are reckless, it's everyone else. They are convinced they can drive perfectly safe while talking on the cell phone, so the law doesn't apply to them, it's not like they will get caught, or so they tell themselves.
it's not the problem of the ban not working, the problem lies with the people which are still using their mobile devices regardless of the ban.. A lot of accidents are still caused by people not paying attention because they are using their mobile device (or are in a phoneconversation (also when handsfree)).. So if people would actually stop using the devices during driving, it would certainly reduce the ammount of accidents.. Almost every day when I'm on the road I see people not paying attention due to those, and it certainly isn't the first time I was a witness to such stupidity ending in an accident.. People think they can handle using the phone and driving at the same time, but they can't, their just lucky nothing happened when they used the device..
Cell phone users are not distracted through 100% of the trip. That's the key difference. Drunk drivers aren't drunk for 5 minutes out of their 30 minute ride. They're drunk the whole ride.
Corellation != Causation.
First, drivers have been discracted since the first time a person got behind the wheel. When cars were first invented, anyone with cash to buy one could drive one, and I'm sure plenty were injured or killed.
So somewhere down the line, as automotives became more powerful regulations were added to help provide a set of expected standards (road ettiquete you could say). Eventually this changed to proof of knowledge of basic skills in driving.
Long before cellphones there was car radios and cigarettes. Millions of drivers would be driving one-handed while fiddling with the radio, using the other to flick ashes, hold the smoke stick or flipping the car lighter to light the cancer stick. People would accidentally drop their lighters, lit cigarettes, or hot ashes on themselves. Once drive-through restaurants were opened up, now people were eating with both hands and driving with their knees, sometimes fiddling with the radio and then lighting cigarettes.
Books and news papers, I've seen it first hand in DC traffic a man had his entire work desk spread out in his front seat, News paper open wide on the stearing wheel and a laptop on the dash while DRIVING on I-95 in rush hour.
Technology of Pagers and early cell phones....people would look at pagers pick up cell phones and make calls.
Lets not forget all those pimped out cars and trucks that bounce or shake and the music so loud that 5 cars around the Bass box on wheels would have their windows rattle.
Soon we have game boys, ipads, iphones, androids, ipads...
We bitch incessantly about distracted driving, but long long ago, a precedent was set with cars and their toys.
Now lets flip the switch to the other aspect. Traffic lights, and traffic laws. Ever notice that yellow lights are shorter in some areas than others and in some locations vary by time of day. Ever notice how landscaping to make a city look nicer blocks the view of the road from drivers. Ever notice how there are less and less officers on the road enforcing the small things. Ever notice how often the courts minorly punish people who drink and drive, but if you're sober and you're distracted by any number of things listed above you're criminalized. Ever notice how in areas where there is less public transportation made available you have a higher rate of auto accidents.
Ever notice how every new thing added to slow traffic down (speed bumps / humps, calming circles, etc) just seem to add more challenges to driving. Ever notice how speed limits are not consistent from city to city or even on the same damn street in the same city. Ever watch how the DMV treats cheaters? I have, they don't care, they don't fail them or kick them out.
Bad drivers are everywhere, and it's not because of cell phones. Young and old.
Driving school is a joke when all it does is spout back to you information in a book. Fix driving school to actually train people how to drive, put them in simulators which might help them learn how to handle a situation better.
The whole system of driving is flawed from both a regulation perspective an drivers perspective. Cell phones are a distraction, but a person who talks on the cell phone is NOT more likely to be a bad driver.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I don't talk on my phone in the car because I find driving much more fun and interesting. I *could* catch up on some calls and such, but it'd suck all the fun out of one of the last few quiet places I have left. I really enjoy working the gears and listening to the car do its thing. Keeping your head up and your eyes open is a proper driving posture feels good physically. I don't even have to be pushing the car hard, though that does add to the fun.
Driving is fun! Don't dilute it with annoying calls, or inane texts and tweets.
I can understand how talking while driving wouldn't have that much statistical effect on accident rates. Texting is the real problem. It's much more dangerous and hard to detect/enforce. I'm pretty sure the lady who t-boned me last year would have seen my rather large pick-up had her eyes not been on her phone.
I love your signature line. And so true too :)
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
I've never been able to accept the oft-cited studies claiming that hands free is no safer than using the phone directly while driving. I'm embarrassed that I never considered a common cause between accidents during hands-free and hands-on calls that is unrelated to the call.
In any case, IN YOUR FACE commenters who cited the older studies!
With cell phone usage exploding from nothing to almost total saturation in the course of just a couple of decades, the dire warnings that we're all drunk drivers now would seem to have necessitated a noticeable increase in accidents, which didn't happen.
The real answer to worries about driving while talking is to take the wheel out of the driver's hands and give it to a robot. Most people are not skilled drivers. They should just let a machine do it for them, while they relax and play fucking sudoku or something.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
I thought it was funny a few years ago when they made talking on a cellphone illegal. This encouraged people to text with the phones in the lap, below window level... which in turn required them to take their eyes off the road for longer periods of time.
People who are likely to kill are still going to do it even though it is banned, so logically we should repeal the murder ban, right?
I like your idea. Maybe tattoo/brand them too.
Alternatively, if you voluntarily impair yourself by any means then any consequences are treated as premeditated and intentional. Bump another car? Criminal damage/vandalism. Injure someone? GBH, Assault and/or battery. Kill someone? Ride the lightning.
Of course, all the libertards who claim 'no harm no foul' would be going "boo hoo, I didn't mean to do it on purposely, noa menz rayer so I'z noyt gilty" when they're on the sharp end of it.
Can't have it both ways, boys.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."