Are you saying that texting is the only thing that could possibly be influencing the highway death rate? That bigger cars, better airbags, better medical procedures for victims, improved road design and other factors couldn’t possibly be lowering the death rate? That it’s logically impossible that the death rate would be lower without texting/cellphone use by drivers?
Or are you saying that you’ve looked at the detailed statistics, really looked at the causes of thousands of collisions, and done a careful calculation of exactly how much damage is done by distracted drivers, in order to conclude that the damage is too small to worry about?
I mean, everybody thinks they’re a safe driver, right? You, me, and old Mrs. Jones who can barely see over the windshield anymore. And every one of us who has a cell phone has probably used it while driving at one time or another. And since, we’re safe drivers, things we do must be safe, so using cell phones must be safe. They must be safe, so I’ll assume it’s just like talking to someone in the passenger seat. Can’t argue with that kind of science!
Except studies have indeed shown that in fact it is very, very distracting for a driver to be in a conversation with someone who can’t see what you see and help you notice dangerous things, and who won’t understand when there’s a tricky situation and shut up for a minute so you can concentrate on merging, and who won’t notice when you’re getting too involved in the conversation.
Give me a break. We aren’t talking about texting, we are talking about talking on the cell phone. You also need to understand that lab studies aren’t actually backed up by real world statistics.
If we need a new law it should be stronger seat belt enforcement. We still have too many people dying because they aren’t wearing their seat belts. Even there, I have mixed emotions, because it seems like an ‘evolution in action’ type problem.
I will concede that some accidents are caused by drivers talking on their cell phones, but most people adjust their behavior to conditions and I don’t relish getting a ticket when I call someone to update my ETA when I’m stopped at a traffic light. Since police officers write DUIs for drunks sleeping in their car, I don’t expect them to make fine distinction for cell phone use.
Even the anti-texting laws will be obsolete in few years as Siri-like technology becomes common. Sending a text with Siri seems to me to be less distracting that talking to a passenger.
Personally I’m not really in favor a specific law against phone use. I think it should just fall under distracted driving and if a cop sees you do something stupid driving and you’re on your phone you get a ticket. However, the “phones on for safety” argument is about as weak as it gets. No one is actually going to put their phone in the trunk or leave it at home. Most responsible adults can ignore a ringing phone entirely or long enough to pull over, or have enough sense to silence it or turn it off if they are that easily distracted. Those who can’t won’t let some gov’t official’s offhand remark keep them from their oh so important business. Anyway, I believe she was using an extreme example to make a point.
I would also say that the chance of someone dying because either they or another driver didn’t have immediate access to a phone is exceedingly small. First, only a very, very small number will actually limit physical access to their phone in the first place. Second, a driver involved in an accident and who is injured to a point where they might die may not even be able to use a phone due to being unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. Third, even if a driver keeps the phone handy, a violent accident can easily fling the phone to another part of the car or even out of the car.
As for dying because another driver took 30 extra seconds to turn on his phone or pull over and get it out of the trunk…I think that’s stretching it even more. Keep in mind this would first have to be one of the tiny number of drivers lacking enough self control that they put their phone in the trunk, they would have to be without any passengers who might have their own phones at hand to call, and there would have to be zero other (responsible non-trunked phone) drivers present. And then it would have to be a situation where the delay was actually enough to make a difference.
People shouldn’t be making calls at traffic lights either.
I have to use a radio while driving, and a handheld device, plus carry airport passengers.
so don’t bug me about directions, and get your ass off the bus when the door opens, please?
So to summarize, you are saying my argument is weak because the Chairwoman of the NTSB’s suggestion is so silly that people will ignore it. You seem to have just picked a rather obnoxious way to agree with me.
Your statistical arguments are weak and often contradicted by the actual data. In the first place, all traffic fatalities are low probability events. You have about one chance in 10,000 of dying in a traffic accident in any given year. Also if you examine the statistics many fatal accidents occur late at night or in rural areas and many involve a single vehicle. That isn’t even accounting for hit and run where you can’t really expect the other driver to call 911.
The fact that rural traffic fatality rate is twice as high as the urban rate is, in my opinion, is largely because of emergency response time. The emergency response time in Massachusetts is around 15 minutes and in Montana around 50 minutes.
When you are talking the difference between severe injury and death an increase in the emergency response of a few minutes can easily result in hundreds of additional deaths a year.
Lighten up Francis. I stated twice upthread that I did not consider my info to be a formal analysis of any sort.
If you want to talk about cause, I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that the biggest improvement in safety over the last few decades is getting the drunks off the roads. My WAG is that with about a million and a half arrests, and over 10000 deaths [cdc figures] we should spend most of our efforts on stopping DUI, instead of worrying about phones.
We as a nation have neither the will, nor the backbone to stop this. Since it requires actually being mean to the drunks, I doubt we’ll ever take the absurdly simple steps needed to solve it. FWIW: I have actually done my part, and taken one of the useless subhumans off the road (apparently) permanently. Have a stroll through this thread (start at post 4) and see how many of the local offenderati chimed in to say that I was a meanie. This type of attitude causes politicos to seize on something easy like evil cellphones rather than deal with real problems, and I occasionally feel the need to yell BS.
The number of deaths related to drunk drivers decreased by 13,429 between 1982 to 2009, while the number of deaths by sober drivers actually increased by over 3,000 during the same time frame.
This isn’t to imply that sober driving actually became more dangerous during this time. There was a big increase in driving miles during this time interval. The death rate per 100 million passenger miles decreased by a factor of three between 1980 to 2010 (3.3 to 1.09).
I totally agree that drunk driving is a major safety problem, and have my own rant on that (hint: compare the number of people who died in the Sept 2001 attacks with the number of innocent people killed by drunk drivers each year). I have a question for you, though. If decent studies showed that people on active cellphone conversations were as impaired in driving skills (slow to understand what’s happening, slow to respond, etc.) as drunks, would you think dealing with cellphone use while driving was as important as dealing with drinking and driving?
I never understood the argument that “X is a bigger problem (which already has laws in place regarding it but still happens) so we should totally ignore the smaller but similar problem of Y!!!”
I don’t know about you, but I can generally think about more than one issue in any given day.
No, I don’t agree with you. Your argument is that a ban will cause people to leave their phones at home, which is ridiculous. If there were a ban people would either ignore it and use the phone anyway, have a smidge of self-control and not use the phone while driving, or, lacking self-control, simply turn it off so they aren’t tempted. The chairwoman offered an extreme example of what someone could do if they just can’t handle not playing with their phone while behind the wheel; it’s not the official recommendation.
I cited no statistics, so they can’t exactly be called weak. What I stated was a common-sense analysis of your doomsday scenario where we have hundreds of people dying because someone didn’t have a phone at hand ready to call 911 the moment there is an accident. And while informative, the statistics you cite provide zero backing to your argument or contradiction to mine. Dark, night, alone; doesn’t matter if you’re unconscious, your face smashed and choking on blood, and you or your phone are now in the ditch.
It takes my phone 25 seconds to turn on…long enough for someone to die? I guess I’ll take that chance. But really I won’t have to because I don’t use the phone while driving and thus I’m able to leave it on and snug in my coat pocket. Don’t worry, I’ll leave it unzipped…just in case.
I saying your ‘common sense’ is wrong. We have actual data about all sorts of traffic situations. You are making deductions based on premises that are wrong. When I point out that your premises were wrong you simply introduce more premises. I suggest you stop making stuff up and actually do some research.