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Automotive News & Views Should cell phone drivers be singled out?
3688 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2009 at 11:39 AM
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Replying to: wsherwoo (Feb 12, 2009 7:20 am) of serious crash involvement among drivers using a phone at the time of the collision. Glad the NHTSA acknowledges the exponentially growing body of evidence that cell phone usage has a relationship to collisions. I'm going to bookmark this for the future.
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Replying to: kdshapiro (Feb 15, 2009 9:36 am) of serious crash involvement among drivers using a phone at the time of the collision. Glad the NHTSA acknowledges the exponentially growing body of evidence that cell phone usage has a relationship to collisions. How many of those 500 drivers had previously been involved in a collision? How many of those 500 drivers were intoxicated? How many of those 500 drivers were under 20 or over 60? Wireless Quick Facts So in going from 28.1 million wireless subscribers in 1995 to 195 million in 2005 to 263 million in 2008 there hasn't been quite the upheaval and catastrophe that was predicted. Most research based studies include a peripheral detection task of some sort which is to capture the response time issue. In most cases, it doesn't appear significantly different than the "just drive" task. In those cases where there is a statistically significant different, some aren't actually significant in the real world.
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Feb 15, 2009 12:26 pm) |
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We could argue the statistical methods used in these studies and cite contrary study results all day long. Why not just leave the statistical analysis to the science dweebs buried in their labs? The truth of the matter is that anyone using a cell phone while driving is more dangerous--period. All other things being equal, the more extraneous tasks a driver is performing necessarily detract from his primary duty of driving. It doesn't matter what one is doing other than driving--if it doesn't directly support the activity of driving, then it detracts from the driver's ability to drive well-period. Any survey that says anything different constitutes more lies from parties that have some interest in the outcome of the study. Sometimes good old anecdotal evidence is the best kind. As a Jets/Mets season ticket holder, I drive from SE VA to NY more than twice monthly--about 900 miiles round trip. Virtually every time I see someone on the interstates doing something stupid, they are doing something other than just driving. While most of the dopes have cellphones to their ears, some are eating, reading, smacking kids around, applying make-up or the worst of all: text messaging. If cops worried as much about distracted drivers as they did speeders, we'd have fewer accidents. No, I don't have statistics to back it up--just plain old common sense.
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Replying to: vinnyny (Feb 16, 2009 8:07 am) |
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Replying to: vinnyny (Feb 16, 2009 8:07 am) Good point. And they had a driving while distracted law that covered all of the things you mentioned. But as far as personal observations? You see what interests you or bothers you the most. When you buy a new car that you don't realize other have what do you see more of than you ever did before/ You see that model car. When I used to drive up the 210 to the 5 to go north of LA I would see cars in the center lane going slower than the flow of traffic. I happen to be big on lane control and have always believed slower traffic should move right. It seemed to me 8 out of 10 of the middle lane drivers were of Asian decent, or Asian looking. Do I then assume Asians are worse drivers than others? Maybe there were just more asian looking drivers in that area. The NHTSA study will give ammunition to hands free proponents to keep the technology in the car. Doesn't mean it will stop the efforts to get rid of it but this is a political battle where the economy and safety will both be concerned. People will have to weigh the risk and eventually vote their conviction. |
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Replying to: boaz47 (Feb 16, 2009 9:54 am) |
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Replying to: vinnyny (Feb 16, 2009 8:07 am) Common sense in conjunction with innumerable studies shows the true impact of cell phone usage, even if every cell phone driver doesn't end up in the morgue, there is a definite lack of attention to driving, which is very noticeable.
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Replying to: kdshapiro (Feb 16, 2009 8:38 pm) Which is all stuff they may or may not be doing if not on the phone. Common sense in conjunction with innumerable studies shows the true impact of cell phone usage, even if every cell phone driver doesn't end up in the morgue, there is a definite lack of attention to driving, which is very noticeable. Crash deaths are down Yup, its just terrible out there...crash rates going down year after year, fatality rates going down year after year, terrible. Apparently, the impact of cell phone use is dropping off the table, especially after a 250% increase in subscriptions over the last few years.
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Replying to: boaz47 (Feb 16, 2009 9:54 am) That was half my point way back when I started this discussion: we don't need one more law to cover something already covered by law - distracted and erratic driving. Even vinny there had four or five other examples in his anecdotal evidence of things he had seen being done by drivers who were driving poorly. How about enforcing the laws already on the books? But we know that will never happen, just as it is not happening now with the new cell phone laws in California. Instead, the police and highway patrol focus on two things - speeders and red light runners (with a healthy smattering of California Stoppers for good measure) - for all the tickets they write. Why? because they are MARVELOUS revenue generators, and there are so many violators just in those two categories that 100% of their time could be taken stopping people for those two offenses, if they so chose.
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