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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
Check out Carlisimo's comment - talented younger sister he has.  Thoughts from the Curb: Where Can I Text While Driving? (Edmunds Daily) 
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In August, 2009 issue of Car and Driver, David E Davis Jr said the following: "Cell phone use should be limited to passengers in motor vehicles. A driver who needs to make or accept a call should simply stop at the first opportunity and chat for as long as he or she wishes. Cell phone use accounts for some of the most flagrant bad driving on our roads today." Would be nice if prominent people in our nation would make similar statements in public. Perhaps baseball, football and basketball players. Also, entertainers. The public sheep believe these types of people. Just think if Michael Jackson had come out some years ago and made public statements on the dangers of drivers using cell phones. |
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"The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002." U.S. withheld data on risks of distracted driving (NY Times via MSNBC)
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Replying to: steve_ (Jul 21, 2009 1:50 pm) Seems like time is way overdue to get legislation and technology together to design vehicles and/or cell devices to be inoperable while vehicle is moving. In a "real" emergency, such as witnessing a traffic accident, one can always find a safe spot to pull over, stop and call 911. Except for younger drivers today, those of us a little older Somehow managed our affairs and business without having cell phones to use in our moving vehicles. Just how did we ever get through those difficult times. No cell phones. The hardships we endured. Had to look for pay phone whether for mundane calls or real emergencies. NY Times article mentioned an OKLA politician talking continuously while driving from office to home. This and similar "stupid" and "dangerous" practice needs to stop. A moving vehicle is not the place to conduct business, do idle chatter, etc. An alternative to laws or technolgy cutting off cell phones in moving vehicles is too bill cost per minute at say $2-$5. 911 calls would be exempted. Cell towers that handle cell calls already "know" if cell device is moving. The towers need to know this in order to be able to "pass" the call to the next geographic tower that is in the direction of the cell phone movement. What is needed is legislation requiring high per minute rate when cell phone is moving and cell providers to get hardware/software developed and implemented to enable high rate. This would be good revenue for providers and stimulus to equipment/software manufacturers and would be incentive for drivers to NOT use cell phone while driving. |
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| http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/19/technology/20090719-driving-game.h- tml | |
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Note: foxnews is only reporting on the story... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,535021,00.html?test=latestnews |
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Time Magazine August 24 issue page 45, 46, has an article on texting, cell phone use by drivers. Article says that Prof Strayer at Univ of Utah conducted tests and found that DUI drivers at .08 level had better reaction time than a sober driver on a cell phone. Article also said that Steven Yantis, Prof of psychological and brain sciences at John Hopkins said: When a cell phone driver is listening to cell conversation, they are slower to respond to things they are looking at. It requires the driver to select one thing at the cost of being less able to respond to other things. Article also said the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) recently uncovered a buried NHTSA Study in 2003 that identified cell phone use by drivers as serious safety hazard. CAS is filing a petition that would require all new vehicles to only allow cell calls with the transmission in Park mode. Emergency calls would be allowed while moving. Mr Ditlow, executive director of CAS, said his org's goal is to make cell phone talking and driving as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving.
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Replying to: xrunner2 (Aug 17, 2009 7:59 am) Wow after the New York Times gets blasted so badly for misrepresenting data that they have to drop the series, Time comes out with an article...I see why newspapers and news weeklys are getting replaced by online media. Article says that Prof Strayer at Univ of Utah conducted tests and found that DUI drivers at .08 level had better reaction time than a sober driver on a cell phone. That is very interesting because in a Driver Distraction Study presented to an HFES panel today by Joel Cooper (Strayer's grad student), he found that cell phone drivers have a shorter reaction time than those in the just drive task. Additionally, in Strayer's studies, the phone conversation centers around a religious, political, moral, or philosophical point engineered to set up an emotional response. Article also said that Steven Yantis, Prof of psychological and brain sciences at John Hopkins said: When a cell phone driver is listening to cell conversation, they are slower to respond to things they are looking at. It requires the driver to select one thing at the cost of being less able to respond to other things. Yup, I totally agree. For all the unified cognitive models that exist, there is always a black box in there that implies single order processing. What, exactly, is the cost of that switching time? Is it significant? Can you walk and chew gum? Pat your head and rub your tummy? Article also said the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) recently uncovered a buried NHTSA Study in 2003 that identified cell phone use by drivers as serious safety hazard. CAS is filing a petition that would require all new vehicles to only allow cell calls with the transmission in Park mode. Emergency calls would be allowed while moving. Mr Ditlow, executive director of CAS, said his org's goal is to make cell phone talking and driving as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving. Yup good luck with that. So quick recap: Cell phone use in last 10 years increases by >900% Number of highway fatalities continues to be at record or near record lows Crashes continue to be at record or near record lows Actual on road data from 100 car naturalistic driving study: * Dialing a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 2.8 times as high as non-distracted driving; * Talking or listening to a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.3 times as high as non-distracted driving; and * Reaching for an object such as an electronic device made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.4 times as high as non-distracted driving. So in real life driving, talking on or listening to a cell phone increased the risk factor by 1.3, which may or may not be a statistically significant difference over not using the phone at all. It is less risky than reaching for an iPod or box of cigarettes. Now back to our usual banter of people creating epidemics where they don't exist. 
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Aug 17, 2009 5:31 pm) I work near an airport with it's attendant rental car terminals and tourist traffic - people that in general seem to have no idea where they are going. Almost weekly, there's a near miss or pileup as someone exiting the area being is coached on the cell as to where they have to go. They find out they are in the wrong lane (usually it's the left most one), and either 1) yanks the wheel and cuts across 3 lanes of 60 mph traffic, or 2) comes to a near standstill in the left hand lane waiting until they can "safely" make the aforementioned move. Just yesterday on the way home I come across some low life  in the left hand lane doing ~50 mph. This is on a 60 mph road. Yep, you guessed it (or maybe you didn't ) - yakking away on the cell, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around him. These kinds of situation I don't think were modeled or measured by those studies.
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Replying to: lilengineerboy (Aug 17, 2009 5:31 pm) * Talking or listening to a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.3 times as high as non-distracted driving; and * Reaching for an object such as an electronic device made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.4 times as high as non-distracted driving. I hope you didn't waste too much money on that engineering degree because any dishwasher or busboy could tell you that that 2.8 times the risk is significant. If you think a 30% increase in risk doesn't amount to much, consider how you'd feel about getting a 30% raise in salary. Better yet, think about how you'd feel about a 30% pay cut--would that be significant? By the way, the last I heard, a cell phone is an electronic device. In fact, it's probably the one most drivers are reaching for while they're crashing...
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