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Are Phone-Addicted Drivers More Dangerous Than Drunk Drivers? (axios.com)
After crunching data on 4.5 billion miles of driving, road-safety analytics company Zendrive concludes there's a new threat which just last year claimed the lives of 6,227 pedestrians: drivers "under the influence of a smartphone."
The study points out that drunk driving fatalities peak after midnight, while distracted driving happens all day, conluding that distracted driving is now a bigger threat than drunk driving. schwit1 shares this report from Axios: "Phone addicts are the new drunk drivers," Zendrive concludes bluntly in its annual distracted driving study. The big picture: The continued increase in unsafe driving comes despite stricter laws in many states, as well as years of massive ad campaigns from groups ranging from cell phone carriers to orthopedic surgeons. "They hide in plain sight, blatantly staring at their phones while driving down the road," Zendrive says in the study.
And it's a growing problem. Over just the past year, Zendrive, which analyzes driver behavior for fleets and insurers, said the number of hardcore phone addicts doubled, now accounting for one in 12 drivers. If the current trend continues, that number will be one in five by 2022.
The report concludes drivers are 10 percent more distracted this year than last -- and that phone addicts have their eyes off the road for 28% of their drive. Yet when asked to describe their driving, 93% of phone addicts said they believed they were "safe" -- or "extremely safe" -- drivers.
One even insisted that they never texted while driving, "but I like to FaceTime my friends while driving since it makes time go by faster."
The study points out that drunk driving fatalities peak after midnight, while distracted driving happens all day, conluding that distracted driving is now a bigger threat than drunk driving. schwit1 shares this report from Axios: "Phone addicts are the new drunk drivers," Zendrive concludes bluntly in its annual distracted driving study. The big picture: The continued increase in unsafe driving comes despite stricter laws in many states, as well as years of massive ad campaigns from groups ranging from cell phone carriers to orthopedic surgeons. "They hide in plain sight, blatantly staring at their phones while driving down the road," Zendrive says in the study.
And it's a growing problem. Over just the past year, Zendrive, which analyzes driver behavior for fleets and insurers, said the number of hardcore phone addicts doubled, now accounting for one in 12 drivers. If the current trend continues, that number will be one in five by 2022.
The report concludes drivers are 10 percent more distracted this year than last -- and that phone addicts have their eyes off the road for 28% of their drive. Yet when asked to describe their driving, 93% of phone addicts said they believed they were "safe" -- or "extremely safe" -- drivers.
One even insisted that they never texted while driving, "but I like to FaceTime my friends while driving since it makes time go by faster."
That's not what objectively means.
1/3 of deaths being alcohol related is terrifying. It means that if we could get people to stop drinking and driving the numbers of fatalities would more or less instantly drop by a third. Considering how many different things there are that cause fatal car crashes, having something make up a third of it is a pretty big deal.
Other common causes are inattention, mechanical failure, animals, weather conditions, exhaustion, other drug impairment and I'm sure there's others.So,even with such a short list, it's fairly clear that driving while impaired due to drunkenness should be a high priority in terms of enforcement.
Since 1995, if you factor out the 2008-09 recession, there's been a continued slow decline in fatality rate. The dip during the 2008-09 recession also seems disproportionately large compared to past recession-linked dips. The 1973-75 recession happened at nearly 2x the fatality rate, so you would expect its dip to be 2x as large. But the 2008-09 dip is nearly the same absolute size. (The post-recession rebound after 1973-75 is nearly 2x as large.)
NHTSA has been claiming credit for this decrease, citing improved crash safety testing and standards. But I wonder if it's more the effect of GPS becoming commonplace to where it's now ubiquitous in all new cars, and people whose cars don't have GPS navigation just use their phones. In the days before GPS, it was common to drive with a folded map on your steering wheel, trying to figure out where you were and how to get to your destination. Way more dangerous than texting while driving IMHO.
I won't even cross when there are cars in the right-hand lane at a corner unless the driver has fully stopped at the corner and looked right at me (so I know they know I am there). This even applies to when I have the signal light to cross (as opposed to no traffic lights), because I could be stepping out into the street and still have someone speed up to the corner, slow a little, then turn and pass right in front of me.
Plenty of people slow down as they reach the corner, while looking at the phone by their lap, glance up to the left to ensure there's no oncoming traffic, then look back down and make their right-turn without looking for pedestrians. Since I don't drive, I get in a lot of walking, and see this all the time.
According to the National Safety Council, texting while driving is by far the most dangerous way to use a phone while driving - but even talking on the phone distracts drivers so badly that they can miss up to half of hazards as important as red lights and pedestrians crossing the road in front of them.
Note, too, that their tests have established that texting only while stopped at red lights still leaves drivers distracted for nearly half a minute after they put their phones down and resume driving.
That's why I only use my phone for turn-by-turn navigation by voice when I'm behind the wheel - and I input my destination and start the directions before I leave my driveway or the parking space from which I depart.
When I'm driving, I let all calls go to voicemail, as well, because none of them can possibly be as critical as the task of driving defensively. I take my responsibility for controlling a ton or more of mass moving at high velocity among other such vehicles (that I always assume are being driven by irresponsible cretins) as seriously as if my life, and the lives of my passengers, other motorists and their passengers, and pedestrians and bystanders depended on it.
It's also the reason I merge onto highways at the current speed of traffic on that road - because entering a freeway at a lower speed than the vehicles already on it is dangerous. That's why I survey traffic conditions on the road I'm entering as I'm negotiating the onramp, rather than blindly assuming that the other drivers will courteously leave me room to merge and graciously adjust their own speed to accomodate mine.
They won't.
You should always assume that every other driver on the road is actively suicidal - and determined to take you with him. It's the only way to be even marginally safe.
Other than taking off and nuking them from orbit, that is ...
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