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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."
At lease the drunk drivers are doing their best to look at where they are going
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
In fact I'm driving to the grocery store as I type this. One thing people fail to reali
Myself, I never write texts or respond to emails while driving, I only read them
You are part of the problem
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Have gnu, will travel.
Stand at a busy corner and watch the drivers making left turns who are clutching a phone. It's scary how many I see.
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.
Myself, I never write texts or respond to emails while driving, I only read them
You are part of the problem
Or better stated:
"Most of the time you are somebody else's problem"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
No, there's no such thing as an "accident." There's generally a number of factors that contribute to a crash and if any of them were properly addressed you wouldn't have a crash.
This is why it's so important to not just keep the car properly maintained, but to be a defensive driver that's using good road strategy to see what could happen in the future down the road. And take steps ahead of time to reduce the risks.
This is something they taught some of when I got my drivers license decades back and it's something that they really focus on when teaching people how to ride motorcycles. The reality is that crashes are rarely, if ever, unavoidable. There's pretty much always something that could have been done to prevent the crash.
Considering how often during my MERE 10 minute commute from home to work and back again, and I see people screwing with their phones at nearly every light.
It's a major problem. Enforcement of laws needs to take it up a notch and the fines need to be severe. People are not learning a goddamn thing.
Maybe a truly devastating fine of some ferocious amount will get people to think twice. They're not right not.
Generally speaking most people are not drunk all day long. But texting happens all day long
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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.
Except instead of willful ignorance on drunk driving ("Get off our backs - everybody does it, and it's not that dangerous,"), it's the selfish "phone drunks".
Like drunk drivers, they're really easy to spot. They subconsciously drive a little slower while (in any lane). They fade in and out of their lanes - especially on freeway curves. They do it with extra good posture (perhaps they think that helps them navigate safely?) The worst ones are the ones holding their phones up in front of their faces and talking at them, trying to watch the road with peripheral vision - with no shame.
After a few more high profile deaths and political pressure, and a few of those "after school special" movies about cell phone driving killing children, we'll see an overly strict set of punitive laws that nail cellphone users while they drive (by the 2030s).
Maybe driverless technology will finally be the real solution for those who have to be able to "to FaceTime my friends while driving since it makes time go by faster." (Oh man... And least she was honest. And yeah, $100 says it was a she (under 25). Most dudes would never admit to that, and only someone that young would be that vain and foolish about life...)
And at least in principle, talking on a hands-free phone is not going to be *significantly* different from talking with a passenger in the back seat of car. Some differences may exist due to a passenger possibly being able to react to what is going on around the car as well, but I expect that these would be relatively minor, particularly since visibility from the back seat is generally reduced compared to where the driver sits.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Over here accidents are considered to be alcohol-related if the driver is over the legal limit, and if the accident is deemed to be caused or exacerbated by the intoxication (in order words: not an accident that would have happened if the driver were sober). Of course the latter point isn't always clear, in which case they'll err on the side of it being DUI-related.
As for phone use while driving, statistics do show that hey have caused a massive increase in accidents, but the actual accidents in this case are almost all rear-enders and other more or less serious fender benders; deaths caused by driving while on a cellphone are rare. I see most distracted drivers on the highways rather than in areas with cyclists or pedestrians, so I wonder how they arrived at this figure.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Sometimes dangerous, but frequently "in the way". I can tell a phone user as I approach from behind before I can directly see them using it: He's the one who's driving slower than everyone else, weaving out of the lane, or who doesn't see that the light has turned green, causing others to get caught by the red light - basically wasting everyone's time due to their selfish habit.
Fed up one day, I held the horn at one before she finally looked up at me (ignoring horns, really?). I pretended to text in midair so she could see me - she flipped me off... At least I know she can use more than her thumbs.
As for phone use while driving, statistics do show that hey have caused a massive increase in accidents, but the actual accidents in this case are almost all rear-enders and other more or less serious fender benders;
Well, except for my previous vehicle...t-boned by a teenage texter cruising through a red light at ~60mph. Rolled me right over on the roof, totaled truck.
And it wasn't a 'last second red thing. Rather, she had a full 10 seconds of red light, with no one looking out the window.
Luckily, neither of us were seriously hurt. The only real damage was to my wallet, for a replacement vehicle.
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.
What is there to gain by "briefly looking" that just can't wait until later? What's the likelihood of reading a text that requires immediate action on your part? And if it does, then the 'look' isn't so brief anymore. Isn't it better to just remain alert and observant at intersections even if it's extremely boring; what's the harm in that?
I think you are ignoring pedestrian accidents that are mentioned prominently in this article. Yes rear enders have increased but so have car person and car bike accidents. Those are obviously much more dangerous.
There's still the problem of misinterpreting light changes and such. Common thing I see here is left turn light turns green, traffic in left turn lane starts to move, idiot in next lane also moves straight ahead as he thought the light had turned green. Luckily traffic is usually slow enough that no accident results, just a traffic jam.
Too often traffic doesn't move on a green as well, due to people not paying attention. Once again more of an irritant which leads to traffic jams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Your abuse and/or ignorance of statistical analysis is staggering.
Due to the nature of driving, many accidents are simply not preventable. Everyone is doing everything correctly, nothing in the cars fails, but accidents still happen. This is why people designing self-driving cars have to deal with the moral quandary of what the car should do when an accident is unavoidable.
Accidents caused by drunk drivers are 100% preventable. It doesn't matter that they comprise a minority of overall accidents. Also, your assertion that 66% is the "vast majority" is an overstatement. This isn't politics. 2/3 is a significant majority, but 1/3 is also a significant minority. In fact, it is likely the largest single factor that contributes to car accidents. (With a bit of arithmetic, you can easily deduce it must be at least 1st or 2nd.)
Why don't you ask some of the best predictive statisticians in the world about the significance of 30%.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
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 ...
Check out my novel.
With a bit of arithmetic, you can easily deduce it must be at least 1st or 2nd.
Not quite. It is common that an accident has multiple "related" issues (alcohol related, speed related, driving related, weather related, seat belt related, poor car maintenance related, etc.). As such, you can not deduce it must be at least 1st or 2nd. In fact, you can absolutely assume it isn't 1st, because 1st would be "driving related". 100% of all driving accidents are driving related, and 100% preventable by not driving.