Well put.

66Nova,

Let’s say we take your basic point, and PCH’s, and agree with both of them:

A: Cell phone usage is distracting and leads to a severe deterioration of driving skill.
B: There has been no statistical increase in accidents and fatalities that would justify the concern over cell phone distractions to driving.

Okay. There is no contradiction. I see a lot of room for other facts and studies to explain the present situation. What I don’t see is a lot of reason for legislation.

We aren’t dependent on researchers and scientists to tell us the results of cell phone use in cars. The data is plain to see because so many people are now doing it, and the sky has not fallen.

Perhaps we need a study to see what percentage of miles driven are actually done on a cell phone. Then, we could compare the accident rate of people actually on a cell phone with those not on a cell phone and come up with a useful number.

What I really want to see is some study on the variance of driver ability even without a cell phone. Then tell me what you will do about THAT. Certainly it would make sense to take drivers off the road who simply can’t safely operate a vehicle, but most states aren’t even trying.

The legislatures are responding to the whining of the voters, and if they want to pass the hands free law, then it won’t really cost us much, but it’s still pandering. You can show all the evidence you want, but since it’s not seemingly affecting the overall situation, it should not lead to new laws.

Maybe it is just the demographic that I have a chance to observe, but the a large number of [insert stereotypical driver] people I see almost treat the phone-conversation as priority-1, and actually piloting their 2-ton vehicle as the distraction.

So yeah, while it won’t solve everything, IMO, it is definitely a step in the right direction.

I just can’t discount the hard science that says that the mental drain that a phone conversation involves interferes with the ability to commit attention to other tasks.

Here is a link to one of the engineering docs, hardly kneejerk, that discusses inattention far more eloquently than I can:
http://www.umich.edu/~driving/publications/GreenConvergence04paper4b.pdf

Please, you are offering the sort of reply that frankly just makes me want to write you off.

As it turns out, I’m a two-hands-on-the-wheel, turn signaling, pass left/ keep right, vehemently anti-tailgating, keep-that-damn-coffee-out-of-my-sacred-car kind of guy. So thanks, but no.

But I like facts to go with my morning coffee, and I don’t see them. The reality of traffic accident data does not correlate with kneejerk reactions like yours.

As Landcrusher notes, the comparisons to DUI are total hyperbole. Last I checked, phone handsets do not produce slurred speech or chemically altered perception or motor skills. I can actually make a phone call and walk straight at the same time. (I could also chew gum, but that would be a bit rude to smack gum while having a conversation.)

If phones were the equivalent of DUI, there should be stacks of bodies all over the highways. The increase in accident, death and injury rates should be notable, as phone usage is quite common.

As it turns out, it is actually the opposite — these figures are falling steadily, as they have for decades. For whatever reason, in this case, reality refuses to correlate with hypothetical studies. I don’t know about you, but I tend to use reality for forming my conclusions.

In practice, what seems to be happening is that (a) the loss in reaction time is slight (the numerous studies that I’ve seen conclude that this amounts to about 1/8th of a second) and (b) people adjust for this time when using a phone, effectively negating the loss.

Phones Kill is the modern equivalent of Speed Kills. Sounds nice on paper, but isn’t true in practice. What kills people is rude driving, intoxicated driving, self-centered driving and those who believe that every road incident is someone else’s fault, because it’s more fun to point fingers than it is to take responsibility.

Most of us recognize the signs of the idiot on the phone and adjust accordingly. I would suggest that a lot of accidents are avoided because of the defensive driving of other motorists. And perhaps drunk drivers tend to drive faster or later at night (drunk, tired, AND low visibility), hence the higher death toll associated with that behavior (don’t know if that’s been equalized in comparisons with cell phone impaired driving).

As for tired driving, yes absolutely that is a huge problem. Totally impossible now to quantify “tiredness”, so how would you enforce a ban against tired driving? But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to control the bad behaviors that we CAN legislate against.

If New York’s hands-free law has been in effect for years, can anyone point to statistics that show a net decrease in accidents/injuries/fatalities?

An interesting story I stumbled on the other day:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/20/driving.study/index.html

“And while talking on a cell phone was less risky than dialing, it was a factor in almost as many crashes because it was done far more often, the researchers said.”

This is followed by the following URL:

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0604/popup.risky.driving/frameset.exclude.html

… which, in stark contrast to the text of the CNN story, says that falling asleep at the wheel causes almost 3x as many accidents as dialing a phone, or talking into one. In fact, it exceeds the risk of all other accident causing elements combined!

Where is the media pandemonium about driver fatigue? Where are the draconian laws against it? Why are people not stopped and given exhaustion tests, where if they fail, the cars are seized, the drivers arrested?

This is a serious question that needs an answer, because, as far as I have been able to determine, the next step up in terms of actual risk — real accidents, actual blood, a heaping pile of dead bodies — is drunk driving.

But a little voice tells me that we won’t be finding this discussed much in the media proper: destructive hate is easy, constructive truth is hard.

What you say makes some sense.

The recent hyperbole is all about how cell phone use is as bad as drunk driving.

If that were true, it certainly does not show in the statistics, even if people are using the phone as an excuse. The rise in accidents has been nowhere near a doubling of the drunk driving amount. Are we to believe there are more drunks than cell phone users?

I’m all for it. I normally detest govt intrusion. But I wouldn’t mind an outright ban on all cell phones in cars.

Drill down to root causes, and most traffic accidents are ultimately caused by a combination of discourtesy and a general disinterest in cooperative, thoughtful behavior. If people use their cars as a weapon or a tool for zoning out, the problem is with their mindsets, not with their devices.

If phones were as bad as they claim, we should be seeing death and accident rates climbing exponentially. In fact, the opposite is happening.

Phones have become the new alibi for bad behavior. There’s no evidence to suggest that phone users who get into accidents would have avoided the accidents had they not had phones.

There are no shortages of distractions behind the wheel. The phone is easily replaced by a wide number of other things that can rationalize distracted behavior.

Meanwhile, plenty of people drive with phones without causing wrecks at all. We don’t need fewer phones or more headsets, just fewer licenses.

1. I believe they simply forgot to ban texting while driving. There wasn’t an intentional attempt to keep it legal.
2. Every other ad for the past month on the radio has been for bluetooth devices.
3. This law also bans the use of CB or other two way radios while driving-except by the operators of big rigs. So, it’s against the law for a guy driving a small pickup to use it (for, say, a maintenance department at a school district), but it’s perfectly legal for somebody driving something ten times as heavy to do so.

Johnny,

Here is something you should try. It takes practice, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and it will become almost effortless habit.

When driving without distraction. Very purposefully keep your eyes moving. Don’t let them rest for more than a couple seconds on any given subject. Try to figure out a routine like scan that will add safety, without being too tiring. It will cause fatigue at first. But you will see that you can get a full picture of your situational awareness, and know where your “outs” are.

Once you have it down, when on the phone, ALWAYS use the scan routine. If it gets too tiring, hang up. Eventually, you may find you will start driving like that all the time. So much the better. You will likely be safer on the phone than most people are off the phone.

If you have to always stare ahead to stay in your lane, then stop driving, you old fart! ;)

More generally, anything that took the eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds multiplied the risk per time many-fold.

Thus, it’s absolutely nuts for texting to be legal.

I also found on my most receent trip last week that using a hands free device did not alleviate the main problem with talking on a cell phone while driving, lack of attention to the road, and potentially made it even worse as I didn’t have to hold the phone to my ear.

The slowdown is an automatic function of my brain, so I drive in the right lane when I’m on the phone.

It’s rare, but if I need to make better time, I activate the bluetooth dongle and drive with that directly in my ear.

My cell phone, an AT&T Tilt, is only capable of direct or bluetooth. No wired headset capability, which is unfortunate.

I’d rather that people take the act of driving more seriously than less.

This law won’t do much, if any, harm. These tickets don’t go on your driving record, and insurers/employers will never know about them unless you tell them. Most people won’t even have to spend the $20 for a cheapo Bluetooth headset, since most newer phones today have a ’speakerphone’ function which complies with the new Washington law. (And yes, you are allowed to dial while driving. You just can’t hold the phone to your head.)

And if anybody gets ticketed in Washington for driving while calling, I’d suggest buying a Bluetooth and showing the prosecutor the receipt when you go to court. (Disclaimer: I do this for a living.)

Will it save hundreds of lives? Good question; Washington and California will have to wait a few years and compare the numbers. I don’t object to a slight inconvenience, especially when it only mildly curtails a convenience/habit that wasn’t even possible (for most of us) twenty years ago.

And I can’t speak to California law, but Driving While Texting has been strictly verboten in Washington State since January. (RCW 46.61.668)

Chris

>># shaker :
>>July 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
>>
>>But (get this) texting is still legal.

(yeah… this subject touches a nerve. My wife has been hit twice by cell-phone yakking morons)

–chuck

I ask, because I’m unconvinced that phones (hands free or not) are a big cause of accidents. (though I’m willing to be persuaded by data) It’s kind of like saying women shouldn’t be applying mascara while driving – true enough, but how many accidents are actually caused by mascara application while driving?

Doesn’t just about every state already have laws against distracted driving, including eating. I know i have heard of people getting tickets for eating while driving, or barely driving. This is just another law that wont get inforced.

Robstar the same thing happened to me after taking the MSF course. I actually found out I had been driving a lot like a motorcyclist all along and didn’t even know it. It should be a required class to pass before anyone gets there license. Live a few days in the motorcyclist shoes and YOU WILL change your driving habits. Unless you are one of those drunk Harley riders that go from bar to bar on the weekend and don’t battle traffic commuting.