Why Cell Phone Bans Don't Work 335
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."
Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [esciencenews.com] 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,"
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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.
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It was drop dead obvious that talking on the phone isn't vastly more dangerous than not doing so. It's so prevalent that a "vast" difference in danger would have been clearly reflected in the overall accident statistics.... and it hasn't been. Not that this stopped anyone in the mainstream from hyping the studies.
One of the earlier studies determined
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And the most cited 'study' just said, well there were 12000 deaths, so about 25% of that was cell phone related. They just pulled the number out of the air.
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This shows why using cell phone billing records is totally bogus. Every judge knows that a police officer's word is irrefutable and his judgment accurate beyond compare. If a cop testifies that you were driving too fast, based on nothing more than his visual observation, that's proof positive that you were guilty of speeding.
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Here in Florida, several years back, I got a ticket after having had my transmission redone. The cop told me I was doing 81; I told him that my speedometer had shown 71, and he asked me if I had new tires, had had transmission work, or anything like that. I told him I'd had the transmission redone, and he said that he'd still have to write me a ticket, but that I should go to a shop in Pensacola (forget the name of the shop now) that had a dynamometer and have my speedometer tested. If it really was that
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I saw a small study that I cannot find reference to at the moment that found that talking on a cellphone (hands free or not) had a small statistically significant increase in the accident rate, while talking to a passenger resulted in a small statistically significant decrease in the accident rate.
The hypothesis was that talking with someone is a distraction, but a second set of eyes more than compensates for the distraction. Personally, I would expect that hypothesis to be shown to be correct.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
This study does no such thing. What this study shows is that talking on the phone being dangerous *is not disproven* by accident rates remaining the same after a ban. It does this by suggesting that people most affected by the ban are such (to use a scientific) boneheads that when you take away their cell phone they just find other ways to cause accidents. Another possibility is that these people ignore the ban, the way they ignore the prohibitions on tailgating and weaving.
The big question is that given that cell phone bans don't make much statistical difference in accident rates, should we have them? But to be fair, the same could be said of bans against weaving and tailgating. It's seems plausible that people who don't drive like idiots do so *because they're not idiots*. But as another researcher quoted in the article suggests, perhaps the problem is that we don't enforce laws against aggressive driving enough.
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No state bans all cell phone use for all drivers, but many prohibit use by certain subsets: [ghsa.org] We don't have cell phone bans, we have you have to talk with wireless headset laws in 10 states.
We don't have cell phone bans the same reason we don't ban drive through restaurants (which are far more dangerous than cell phones or DUI) There would be too much backlash.
Oh, yes, and one more thing... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [google.com] of distracted driving research, much of it focused on phone use.
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His work is mostly speculative, and artificial in nature, and his assertions haven't been born out on the road.
This is the key part here. All his doom-saying about talking while driving has not been born out by the facts on the ground.
In fact his studies are some of the exact ones proven to have defects that icebike mentioned in his first linked article.
Re:Oh, yes, and one more thing... (Score:5, Informative)
His work is mostly speculative, and artificial in nature, and his assertions haven't been born out on the road.
Citations?
In fact his studies are some of the exact ones proven to have defects that icebike mentioned in his first linked article.
As far as I can see none of DL Strayer's papers are cited by Dr. Young's paper (doi: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e31823b5efc -- perhaps I've got the wrong one), referred to in the link above.
First there was icebike's claim that DL Strayer has never done any distracted driving studies. That about as wrong as wrong can be. Then there is your claim that the paper linked to by icebike specifically debunks several of DL Strayer's papers. I thought this was curious. If that were so, then why would icebike think that DL Strayer hasn't done any distracted driving studies? So I checked, and apparently Dr. Young's paper doesn't cite any of DL Strayer's publications. If that is so, then you must be mistaken.
I'll assume for now you guys mixed different studies up and simply didn't bother to check, but you can see how it would be forgivable for someone to come away with the impression you guys are just making stuff up.
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finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers
I took it as safe drivers don't talk on their cell phone and unsafe drivers do. In other words, the kind of person that doesn't think driving deserves their full attention will be an unsafe driver and it doesn't matter whether that attention is diverted by cell phones, the radio, eating, bill boards etc.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Insightful)
When I read this in the summary ...
finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers
I took it as safe drivers don't talk on their cell phone and unsafe drivers do. In other words, the kind of person that doesn't think driving deserves their full attention will be an unsafe driver and it doesn't matter whether that attention is diverted by cell phones, the radio, eating, bill boards etc.
I believe you have the gist of it.
The interesting thing is that the bans have not resulted in fewer accidents, which suggests these people are also scofflaws, or they are just as accident prone while NOT on the phone. Its also possible the study made no distinction between talking vs texting.
But other studies have tended to show that talking while driving has not proven more dangerous with the population as a whole, without making distinctions for people easily distracted or prone to take risks.
I tend to suspect that talking, especially hands free, is not that much more of a risk, once you get past the dialing portion of an outgoing call, and driving behavior does not deteriorate during a call. Drivers don't drive faster, start changing lanes, follow too close just because they are on the phone, and in fact they may actually do fewer of these things while talking.
I also believe that those willing to take their hands and eyes off the wheel to text, or even read an incoming text are the major source of the problem. Actual call records seem to support this.
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What we know is that people who are talking on the phone are as likely to have an accident as people who are dead drunk.
No. We don't know that. Texting maybe, but not merely talking.
No real world (actual driving) study bears this out, and neither do the accident rates.
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"No state bans all cell phone use for all drivers, but many prohibit use by certain subsets" [ghsa.org] With the subsets being school bus drivers and novice drivers.
Hands free talking on the cell phone is as dangerous as talking with the cell phone to your ear, and less dangerous than eating that burger just picked up at the drive through. The insurance industry would probably accept a swap of legalizing DUI if every drive through restaurant was closed, as the reduced accident rate would save them some money. Some da
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Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Informative)
It's possible you have your decimal off, but the US's legal limits are only 0.08, which is a damn sight lower than 0.2 (or 0.5)....
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Informative)
Most countries count alcohol content in blood in permilles, not percents.
Level of risk (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Level of risk (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it depends on the particular controls and how they're all designed.
GPS helps you drive less; it guides you directly to your destination, so you don't drive around in circles looking for it, you don't have to constantly pull over and look at a map, or worse with some people, it keeps them from having a paper map unfolded over their steering wheel where they're trying to look at the unwieldy paper map and drive at the same time (not a common sight these days, but it used to be >10 years ago). The main problem with GPS is people who try to program them while they're driving, and cellphone GPSes which aren't affixed to the dash and aren't that easy to use. I use my cellphone's GPS, and it's much handier than paper maps of course, but it has problems; it has to sit on my leg as I drive, every time I take a corner I have to use one hand to keep it from sliding onto the floor and then getting confused as to which direction we're going, and if I need to change anything as I drive, well obviously that's no different than texting and driving. It doesn't help that the built-in GPS units that come with cars are generally condemned as horrible and obsolete (they never update them, they just expect you to buy a new car every year or two), so they're no better. Some of the built-in ones I've tried on high-end brands like $90k Audis have had absolutely abominable UIs.
Built-in screens aren't supposed to play movies (unless they're in the back seat, out of the driver's view). I'm pretty sure there's a law about that.
The built-in MP3 players in theory shouldn't be any more distracting than any other car radio/CD player. The main problem is the sheer volume of music that can be stored in one, so selecting something may be more distracting than just picking one of a handful of CDs out of your storage bin like in the olden days. But the one big problem I see with some cars is that they're trying to replace all the dashboard functions (stereo, HVAC, etc.) with a single touchscreen with a shitty UI. So instead of using a knob to adjust the fan speed like before, you're expected to navigate menus on a touchscreen to do this. Even if you didn't need to navigate menus, there's no tactile feedback here, so you have to fully concentrate on the touchscreen. It should be pretty obvious how horrible this idea is, but apparently it's not so obvious to Ford, Lincoln, and BMW, who are all pushing systems like this hard. Ford in particular went from a very high position on some "initial quality" surveys to very close to the bottom in a short span of time, all because they started pushing their "MyFordTouch" (by Microsoft) system. I guess a bunch of customers got suckered into it at the dealership, and then after living with it for a few months realized how horrible it is. Also, Ford tries hard to push this system by making it non-optional in the higher trim levels; I was looking at a few models a while ago, and the only way to avoid the MFT system was to get the lower models, but then you lose out on all the nice extras like the upgraded suspension, sunroof, etc.
Re:Level of risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Having had to use a GPS recently just to locate remote destinations I have never traveled, I can answer this one... I do emergency management for the state and had to do damage assessments. This required me to travel to the county and only then get the list of houses to inspect. That list can have 50 or more houses to be looked at. Once done in that county it is off to the next. There is no way to locate these houses in the time required for the assessment and certainly no way to memorize all 50 routes one day and then memorize the next 50.
The key to any technology in a vehicle is to not be an aggressive driver and not use (read program) the tech while driving. Pull over if you need to use it.
Re:Level of risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you get the directions beforehand and memorize the route? Have people really become so lazy and mentally dull that they can't do this any more?
This doesn't work so well when any of the following are true:
1. You have several unfamiliar stops to make.
2. Your destination changes mid-course (think sports team manager changing dining plans mid-route).
3. There is road construction on any unfamiliar route.
4. Your destination is not known a priori (think taxi driver).
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GPS helps you get around bad traffic, which is why when recently the Sherman-Minton bridge across the Ohio river was closed for several painful months, I used my GPS every single day to go to work, randomly choosing side streets until I found a way to get through all the insanity that I could depend on getting me there in a certain amount of time.
Of course,
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Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet there are plenty of other things that would be a greater problem:
1) being sleepy (not enough sleep, big dinner, etc)
2) being very upset
3) Having an itchy eye
4) Having a cold (I know someone who crashed after a big sneeze), or being unwell for whatever reason.
5) Last but not least not being a very competent driver.
If you're going to set it > 0.00 then it should be illegal to drive in all the scenarios I mentioned and more.
And as for 5) I doubt you'd want driving tests to be as stringent as what airliner pilots have to pass in well regulated countries[1]. Because I think a lot of people wouldn't be able to pass. If they can't drive, they have fewer jobs available. If they can't work, the average life expectancy of the country drops.
There are also some people with slow reflexes >400ms? If they are good they leave a bigger gap, but if people keep overtaking them and getting into that bigger gap, it starts being dangerous to have so many overtaking incidents near a person with slow reflexes...
[1] I think the dropout rate is as high as 80% in some places.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Informative)
If you could text while driving by never touching the device, and not having to look at it, it may well prove that it isn't that dangerous.
Those systems are just now coming into common manufacture and usage, as Voice Recognition technology is just now becoming up to the task.
Even initiating a voice recognition text message on modern cell phones requires at least one hand, and both eyes. Some in-dash systems in cars
can send a text strictly with voice input, often not even requiring looking at the in-dash display.
So the jury is out on that.
The present studies all are based on manual manipulation of a hand held device which requires both hand and eye be focused on the device in order to send a text message. Touch screens almost necessarily require two hands and two eyes to send a text message.
Mental focus shifts in milliseconds. In fact people can do more than on thing at a time. Often concentration and performance is improved by having a mostly autonomous background task [sagepub.com] happening at the same time. So I don't agree with your assertion that mental focus is harder to shift. The research doesn't support that fact.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're generous and assume that people can shift their focus in 5ms, you'll still be increasing stopping length by just over 4 ft at 60 mph. That's more than enough to shove your front end up someones bumper.
Realistically, let's assume that these distracted drivers take their eyes off the road for a mere 3 seconds. That's an additional 88 ft at 60mph before their action occurs.
Yes, other things can be nearly as distracting as cell phones. The difference is the frequency with which your eyes are going to leave the road.
It doesn't matter how good you are at multitasking.
Also, from TFA:
"based on insurance claim rates in states with and without the laws."
It's not as if someone would lie about their distractions when reporting accidents, right?
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Regardless of you back of the napkin calculations, the other studies I quoted show that this is not happening.
Driving while talking is simply not proving more dangerous than simply driving.
I suspect you are mixing focus shift times typical for texting with those typical for talking.
As for lying, cell records are used in some of these studies to take that possibility away.
A quick glance at your call log and text log pretty much settles the issue.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
If 4 ft will "shove your front end up someones bumper" then you're following too close.
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If 4 ft will "shove your front end up someones bumper" then you're following too close.
Yes, yes a lot of people do that.
The 2 second gap is considered optional by many drivers, especially where trucks are concerned.
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Yeah, the 4 foot difference in stopping distance from mentally shifting focus is DEFINITELY on par with the 88 foot difference from looking at your phone for a few seconds.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Funny)
Let's verify...
60mph = 26.8224m/s
26.8224m/s * 0.005s = 0.134m = 0.440ft
Less than 1/2 a foot, not 4 feet. And at 3 seconds, it's 80.47m, which is 264 feet.
Were you driving while trying to figure this out?
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Wow, 5 ms is overly generous. Reaction times are more on the order of 250ms at minimum, probably more like 750ms. Factor that into the math snark.
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Most people won't get to see this reply, but I was waiting to see how many people took the math in blind faith. I hope some people did the math for themselves and used their own "real" numbers for the length of time that the are truly distracted to punch the numbers. It doesn't take a whole lot of time with your eyes off the road to kill yourself or someone else.
In the case of my own wife, it didn't matter how much math I threw at her, she'd text and talk while driving. It wasn't until she witnessed the
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Blood alcohol limits are pretty much nonsense. There are TONS of factors that will affect how intoxicated or not a driver is under the influence of the drug: How quickly they drank, what they ate, how accustomed to the drug are they, how much they weigh, genetics, mental state, what other chemicals have they ingested and how much/when, how tired they are, etc.
It is just crazy to think that anyone can draw a line in the sand and declare that some magic value separates "intoxicated" from "non-intoxicated".
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
and have taken a bunch of cough meds and antihistamines?
You mean the kind that have warning labels that say, "do not drive when taking this medication"?
But your false dichotomy is irrelevant anyway: I'd rather have neither group on the road with me.
--Jeremy
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Interesting)
But your false dichotomy is irrelevant anyway: I'd rather have neither group on the road with me.
I'd rather have no one on the road with me. What's your point ?
I absolutely hate driving. No other activity has inclined me towards removing myself from society all together and going off the grid in the wilderness somewhere. I love the ability to drive, I just can't stand the driving itself.
But until someone actually causes an accident and inflicts some sort of harm or injury I respect their right to use the roads and drive a vehicle, even though I fantasize about being a tyrannical dictator that makes a law giving myself exclusive use of the roads when I feel like driving somewhere.
Blood alcohol limits, graduated licensing, road tests, license renewals, hell ... even licenses themselves ... are all preemptive; taking a pessimistic view of people and treating them as a danger and potential criminal by default. If we took the same view towards other day to day activities that we take towards driving we would have curfews and random stops and searches and all sorts of other nanny-state intrusions in the name of keeping people safe. I do understand where the sentiment comes from. 5 minutes of driving is enough to make someone really pessimistic about the driving abilities of the average person, but it's telling that with all our laws and regulations and licensing and testing those idiots are still there causing accidents and being jerks. IMO we should be throwing the book at people who get into accidents due to negligence and recklessness as we do with all other crimes, you know innocent until proven guilty, and stop trying to nanny the hell out of everyone's driving habits.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about the States, but cough medicine can get you into just as much trouble as alcohol. It's still a DUI.
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That's because most cough medicine contains alcohol. The breathalyzers and blood tests don't differentiate artificial cherry flavor vs. the flavorful byproducts of fermented grapes or hops.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not nonsense. It's the most reasonably way to do it. You can't have a special number for everyone.
Don't get me wrong, you will always be a number 2 to me~
As for you're example..neither,. The 300 pound man with a .08 is just as dangerous. Something that has been shown over an over again.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
What can't be determined from the same data (as it was scrubbed by the government to prove a point, not to improve safety) is whether 0.08 after 10 p.m. results in an increased tendency to fall asleep at the wheel if alone, or take increased risks if not (both have been proven true alone, but never integrated with the actual crash data for real world risk analysis, as that could jeopardize the party line that alcohol is evil).
Alcohol research stopped when MADD came on the scene with a non-safety-related goal of Prohibition. Alcohol is evil, and anyone looking at the causes too closely is killing children by supporting drunks killing babies. At least that's how it's been for the past 20 years as I've looked into this.
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So you stipulate that having a high blood alcohol level has been shown to cause people to have an increased tendency to fall asleep if alone and take increased risks if not? There's also plenty of evidence to show that reaction time is slower when you've got a high BAC.
So besides disliking the politics of MADD, what's your position? That we should just let drunk drivers, who are more prone to fall asleep, take increased risks, and have slowed reaction times, drive around anyway?
I was at a beer festival re
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So besides disliking the politics of MADD, what's your position? That we should just let drunk drivers, who are more prone to fall asleep, take increased risks, and have slowed reaction times, drive around anyway?
My position is that more people would be alive today if there were greater effort taken to prevent people from falling asleep and making sure that a designated driver didn't sneak any drinks.
My position is that we should try to save lives, and avoid religious crucades hidden in lies of "think of the children."
My position is simply that we should determine "causes" that fix the problem. Like the cell phone thing, it's possible that a decrease in drunk driving wouldn't decrease deaths, it would just result
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Methinks the breathalyzer was not accurate.
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You're average severe drunk drives to work at about .08 on most Monday mornings. It's leftovers from the previous evenings bender. Monday early is one of the most dangerous times to drive, still drunk plus hungover plus lack of sleep plus late to work.
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You said the word "average", then gave an anecdote of a single person.
I don't care what this guy does - he is far enough from me that statistically we will never meet. What I do care about are statistics, so I can judge risk.
You have given essentially zero information, just noise on the wire. What percent of severe drunks are still actively drinking, as opposed to having residual alcohol? And can you offer a citation?
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
how accustomed to the drug are they
You're so very wrong - at least in regards to alcohol. It is true that people can become accustomed to alcohol but they only appear sober. Their reaction times will be just as bad as someone who rarely drinks. This is why drinking and driving is so dangerous - those who do it really believe it does not impact their driving. And they are right, so long as nothing out of the ordinary happens. The problem is it severely limits what one perceives and how one reacts in an emergency situation.
Try having a few beer and then playing your favourite fps. Think of it as a science experiment - and a good excuse to have a few beer. Now compare your scores with and without alcohol and report your findings...
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So what about old people? You think that 70 year old has the reaction times of a 25 year old? The 25 year old with a bit of alcohol in them probably still has better reaction times than the average 70 year old. What's that say?
If they care so much about safety, why isn't MADD clamoring for periodic retesting of the elderly? Sure, it's easy to garner support for laws to be changed in favour of hunting down drunks. Now try it for a more politically difficult target. That is, if you really care about making th
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A lot of MADD's funding comes from older people, so they will never be a target of MADD legislation.
MADD's goal is alcohol prohibition, not safe driving.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Informative)
Try having a few beer and then playing your favourite fps.
I tried that some years back with Unreal Tournament in instagib mode. I joined a game of sober people after a few beers and sat at the top of the scoreboard for an hour. When we played again the next day, I returned to my more traditional position near the bottom.
Think of it as a science experiment
Science requires more than a single data point, sadly...
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, now exactly how do you create a useful set of rules for your scenario? Basically, you can't. So you create rules that can be adjudicated in the real world and err on the side of safety.
It's not crazy. It's the real world. Sucks to have to live in it but such is life.
Original sin and all that....
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Are there no dangerous driving laws where you live? Around here you can get a charged for impaired driving (drugs, alcohol, excessive tiredness) or dangerous driving because you were just being an idiot for no apparent reason.
Re:Mounting evidence - of hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
A single beer is enough to get you in trouble while driving in Sweden so we tend to stay away from driving after having had as little as one beer. Driving to the pub is very rare here because of it, and if you do you'll have to take the bus or a cab home.
IMO it's a good thing, it discourages people from driving to the drinking establishment thinking they will only have a single beer. One beer so easily turns into two, two turns into three and all of the sudden you really are completely unfit to drive, but you still have that car outside and your judgement is impaired. Better if everyone just takes the bus/subway/taxi to and from the pub.
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I think the point is that the danger lies in activities that take your eyes off the road. That's pretty easy to believe. If you're not looking you might crash into things. The whole "shifting mental focus" thing is a lot more tenuous. It might be true, it might not.
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Now watch my prior statement get modded down into oblivion. I have no way to prove this, but I'd be willing to bet that all the people who mod me down are Obama fans. Romney fans are idiots too, but it seems to be the Obama fans that get really upset about any criticism of their hero. A very irrational bunch there.
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From the literature.
Yet not evidenced on the ground.
In short, the literature hasn't proven a reliable predictor of actual facts on the road.
Bull fucking shit! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bull fucking shit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. If there were days of "shock enforcement" where 100% of available traffic officers specifically sought out to enforce cell phone driving laws instead of other non-immediately-deadly traffic infractions, people would respond QUICKLY.
Why do people continue to talk on their cell phones when it's against the law? Because they think they can get away with it. How do you change that? Ticket SO MANY PEOPLE that they talk and whine and bitch about it... that way the risk is genuine.
Do this once a month for three months without announcing the plan to anyone an watch things change QUICKLY.
PS -- Use unmarked cars and cameras, too.
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Um... they basically did that in California. And nonstop news stories. And....
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Enforcement, traffic laws, safety systems don't matter. What matters is the number of people and number of registered cars.
As hard as that may be to believe, Smeed's Law [wikipedia.org]has held up since the 1940's when Smeed first proposed it.
Every advance in safety is offset by people engaging in riskier behavior.
Re:Bull fucking shit! (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Enforcement is the problem. When texting is banned, people put the phones down in their lap to text so that the cops can't see the phones up on top of the steering wheel while they're texting and watching the road.
OK, I guess thinking that government laws can solve this problem is really the root cause.
How about this - rescind the laws that prevent automatic car trials from happening on your State's roads instead? Nevada seems to be doing just fine.
People have made it clear that they'd rather surf than drive, so everything that stands in the way of letting that happen safely is a problem. Or just fight human nature - whatever works.
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If only there was actual scientific evidence that its a problem.
Here is some emperical evidence that it is not a problem:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf [census.gov]
We would expect to see an increase in accidents, but we see a decrease since 1990
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TFA is about a scientific experiment having to do with the dangers of driving with distracting technology in the way, so they test this theory by hooking up a bunch of distracting technology to people while they drive around in their cars and conclude that the same people who are distracted by technology are also distracted by technology. They also tested them by taking away their "hand held drug" and were amazed that they acted more agreesively.
By the way. This study was conducted by MIT in the Boston area
Smart Phones are Awesome (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, when I can check Slashdot while driving, what could go wr
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OT, I know, but I got that email, too. It didn't seem to have anything about GETTING the alpha. Is that still forthcoming or did my browser block something?
Auto V Manual (Score:2)
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Only if you hold the phone to your ear with one hand.
Personally, I prefer a bluetooth headset with the phone set to autoanswer - all I have to do when someone calls me while I'm driving is say "hello" when the earbug chirps at me....
Re:Auto V Manual (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a handsfree phone kit in my van, and I also have a handsfree radio setup - there's a boom microphone mounted on the sun visor and a remote push-to-talk button on the gearstick. I still think it's safer to avoid using either when traffic conditions get a bit tricky.
Incidentally, people in the US seem to make a lot of noise about automatic gearboxes being safer because the driver is not "distracted" by changing gear. It's pretty simple - if you have to think consciously about changing gear after your second or third driving lesson, you lack the mental capacity to drive a car.
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A confounding factor is that people who drive automatics can't drive and certainly don't focus.
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I take it you've never heard of a Bluetooth headset?
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The basic question no one has asked is... (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
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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?
The person in the passenger seat can also recognize dicey driving situations and hazards that the driver may not see. So we only need to make it illegal to drive with passengers who don't know when to shut up (hint: when someone is driving).
the person in the car can see the environment (Score:2)
and shut up if the driver needs to concentrate
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The problem is distractions of any kind. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The problem is distractions of any kind. (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. Actually, I'm pretty well convinced that a big part of the problem is the thing that many drivers don't do: focus their attention on driving, which, as you say, is inherently dangerous.
I was a training ride leader for the Boston->New York AIDS Ride back in the mid-1990s, and I wrote this as part of a safety introduction for novice cyclists:
Change 'riding' to 'driving' and I think it still works pretty well.
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I drove for a short while but quit because it was just too boring. Yes focusing all of your attention is important, but how can you focus on something that 90% of the time is not worthy of any notable percentage of attention?
I can hand you a blank piece of paper and tell you to spend 100% of your attention focusing on it for hours, but I do not see how that would be possible for a human being to do.
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Re:The problem is distractions of any kind. (Score:5, Interesting)
Drive at 30-50% over the speed limit, and it's not boring any more.
I don't necessarily advocate this in town, as the density of traffic makes it "interesting" enough to hold your attention by itself, but I wouldn't be surprised if the low speed limits we have on rural roads and highways in North America cause as many accidents through boredom as they prevent from the lower speed.
It's rare in Canada to find any out of town road with a speed limit above 80 km/h, with the exception of freeway/motorway kind of roads, which are 100 km/h.
Keep in mind, in keeping with the "huge masses of available land" tradition in North America, these are wide, straight, and frequently have completely uninterrupted views of the surroundings for miles in all directions.
When I drove in England a few years back, I always enjoyed seeing the "End of all restrictions" signs when leaving town on a narrow little twisty B road. It meant I could open the car up and have fun. These are, of course, sometimes only one lane roads, with plenty of twists and turns - it's England, after all - and frequently a stone wall on one side or the other, if not both. This kind of road would flat out horrify a typical North American driver, and it would give a Canadian or American traffic planner a coronary, but it keeps drivers engaged, alert, and careful, regardless of the speed they may be travelling at.
After all, if you stop paying attention to the road for even a second, you're either through the stone wall, or off the road in some field.
Not terribly surprising (Score:5, Informative)
>"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.
Cause and effect (Score:2)
One needs to get it in the right order.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Surely this study was not done within the last decade.
The other reason why they don't work... (Score:2)
/= 'texting while driving' (Score:2)
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 distr
True Story (Score:2)
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
Hiding (Score:2)
Low Hanging Fruit (Score:2)
Tailgating
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What does eating on the phone have to do anything? And how would you do that anyway, especially while driving?
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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.
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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.