Talking On the Phone While Driving Not So Dangerous After All

Dorianny writes "New research which takes advantage of the increase in cell phone use after 9pm due to the popularity of 'free nights and weekends' plans showed no corresponding increase in crash rates (PDF). Additionally, the researchers analyzed the effects of legislation banning cellphone use, enacted in several states, and similarly found that the legislation had no effect on the crash rate. 'One thought is that drivers may compensate for the distraction of cellphone use by selectively deciding when to make a call or consciously driving more carefully during a call.' Score this a -1 for common sense."

Comments

Texting on the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

You fuckers need to keep your hands on the God damn wheel.

Re:Texting on the other hand...

[LocalH]

Legally, it's texting. If they get into a wreck, if the phone records were pulled it would show that indeed, they were texting at that time. I don't think these anti-texting-while-driving laws make a distinction between different input methods.

Re:Texting on the other hand...

[TheRealMindChild]

Because then you look down to make sure it transcribed properly. Then you start screwing with the thing because it actually typed out "exclamation point". A pedestrian and a family of lawn gnomes later, you tell the cop in handcuffs "I wasn't doing anything wrong!"

cognitive science

[MajVariola]

You have limited infoprocessing resources. You spend some on a conversation, its less for driving. Conversations can be more distracting than ethanol. Its pretty simple. I've told my wife and kid to shut up when I'm concentrating on a new route. Know your limits.

Re:cognitive science

[RenderSeven]

Cognitive load. Experienced drivers dont spend much cognitive load to drive in normal conditions. Listening to music, not much. Listening to someone talking, lots. Driving fast, heavy traffic, navigating new routes, and poor conditions consume significantly higher load. All this is why you turn down the radio when looking for an address in the dark. It also makes an excellent excuse to tell the wife and kids to shut up ("Hey put a sock in it, I've never walked this way to the fridge before").

Re:cognitive science

[PRMan]

Some people can. And maybe he can. But the law exists because 90% of people can't.

Re:cognitive science

[TheRaven64]

the pilots about 20mins out from landing saying, we can't talk to you anymore until after we land.

And they almost certainly could have landed the plane fine if you'd kept chatting. In almost every case, it would be completely fine. But very occasionally, they'd miss checking a dial or mishear ATC instructions and end up with a plane full of dead passengers, and they don't want to take that risk because, unlike many other people in this thread, they were behaving like responsible adults.

Law didn't change behavior.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Talking and texting while driving was made illegal. Accident rates didn't change. That doesn't say anything about how dangerous it is to talk or text while driving. Instead, it just says that the law is sporadically enforced, if at all, and universally ignored by drivers. Accident rates didn't change because talking/texting while driving rates also didn't change.

I question how much free minutes changed calling patterns, too. I suspect cell phone companies offered that feature knowing there would be little or no change in calling patterns and they would continue to make nearly all the money they already were before the change, indicating that people aren't taking advantage of free minute time windows.

My destroyed truck would disagree

[YrWrstNtmr]

Granted, me and Ol' Belle (may she rest in peace) have a biased opinion. But ending up upside down because some teenage twit thought what was happening on her phone was far more important that looking out the window does tend to skew your opinion.
T-boned at an intersection after she had a full 10 seconds of red light in front of her. She never bothered to look, and blew through the intersection at 50+.

" consciously driving more carefully during a call" is exactly what intoxicated drivers try to do.

Re:Another one!

[TheCarp]

Actually a friend of mine tells an amusing story of being in a class in HS where the teacher brought out the alcohol and driving stats and asked the class "What do these stats tell you?"

Apparently the teacher didn't like it when he raised his hand and said something which I actually believe to be true: "It takes about 10 years to learn how to drive a car well".

I would have laughed at you had you said that to me when I was in my early 20s. At this point, I would smack my 20something self for being stupid.