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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
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: kdshapiro (Mar 01, 2009 8:50 am) So little things like a 10-fold increase in cell phone usage and highway fatalities at their lowest rates in recorded history should probably be part of that.
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Recently, a number of counties here in NY state have been passing laws against texting while driving. This came after a few bad accidents where the driver was so busy looking down to text that he/she drove off the road, into a crowd or into stopped traffic. I was on the fence when the no cell phone laws were passed but this one I agree with. How the heck can you look down in your lap, use both thumbs to hit the buttons, and think about your text all while driving. I know there are some people (young) who claim they can do all those things and still drive safely but I don't see how. How about other states? Any of you folks have laws against texting? In typical NY overkill, one county in my area is sending out extra patrols this weekend to cite texters.
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Replying to: oldfarmer50 (Mar 01, 2009 12:05 pm) I was on the fence when the no cell phone laws were passed but this one I agree with. How the heck can you look down in your lap, use both thumbs to hit the buttons, and think about your text all while driving. I am against hand held texting for exactly the reasons you state, however there are new technologies that will allow speech based text messaging that I have no issues about at all. One of the big bogies for driving safety is "eyes off road time." If you aren't looking at the road, you cant respond to events (like driving off the road, stopped traffic, etc). Even the amount of time the task takes by itself doesn't seem to be a big factor in lane keeping. |
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Passed a driver in a Asstek today outside of San Francisco who was texting. She at least had the decency to put her flashers on as she was driving down the interstate going 10 mph below the speed limit in the center lane 
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Mar 01, 2009 11:49 am) I thought so. |
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Sneakers posted an interesting link in his Next Generation blog. Study: Drivers Using Cell Phones Experience 'Inattention Blindness. The study is from '03 and used simulators, so I'm not sure how it stacks up against the more recent NHTSA study.
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Replying to: steve_ (Mar 03, 2009 7:34 pm)
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Replying to: kdshapiro (Mar 03, 2009 7:42 pm) 
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Replying to: steve_ (Mar 03, 2009 7:34 pm) Many years ago, when I used cell phone while driving, I too experienced the effects mentioned in the study. I can remember times when after I completed say a ten minute intense conversation, I couldn't recall much of anything of where I had been in last 10 minutes. An intense conversation is much greater of a distraction over a long distance vs a brief 30 second call to someone saying you will be late for an appointment. Of course best practice is to not use phone at all while driving. Manage your life more efficiently. Other issue brought up in study is need for driver to devote "Full" attention to the driving task. Drivers using cell phones selfishly think that their inattention while driving only slightly impairs their reaction time and that is OK because they want the cell convenience and are fully willing to impair their driving. Kind of like spoiled kids.
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