More Than 1 In 4 Car Crashes Involve Cellphone Use 367
schwit1 (797399) writes "Texting and driving is dangerous but a new survey finds talking on a cellphone while behind the wheel may be even worse. The National Safety Council's annual report found 26 percent of all crashes are tied to phone use, but noted just 5 percent involved texting. Safety advocates are lobbying now for a total ban on driver phone use, pointing to studies that headsets do not reduce driver distraction."
Another amazing fact: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a reason the pilot of a plane is sectioned away from the screaming babies.
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There's a reason the pilot of a plane is sectioned away from the screaming babies.
I thought it was 'cause he didn't have a first-class ticket.
Re:Another amazing fact (Score:5, Informative)
Women between the ages of 30 and 50 (i.e. mothers) have the lowest fatality and accident rates of any other age or gender group.
See here as one example of easily obtainable information: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic... [iihs.org]
--
cheers - ben
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That is per crash, not per mile driven, I believe.
Per mile driven favors males as ~10% safer.
Re:Another amazing fact (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that statistic is not very useful because it does not take into account many biaises. It is not clear that male and female have the smae driving hours. If male were to drive more during peak hours, it would be logical that they tend to get into more accidents and more fatal accidents.
Not that GP was not a complete douche, but let's not use statistics to say what they do not say.
Re:Another amazing fact (Score:5, Informative)
According to page 43 of this study [ornl.gov], men drive about 50% more miles per year than women.
The GP's link shows that men account for 2.5x as many traffic fatalities.
So men are clearly still worse according to these statistics. But why trust these numbers? Insurance companies make their money by having teams of extremely smart, highly trained statisticians pore over more data than you'll see in a lifetime, and they charge women less. I don't see how anyone could rationally argue that women are worse drivers while knowing that fact.
Women have more more accidents overall and much more likely to have an injury accident than men per mile driven (source [umich.edu]). Males, particularly young males are much more likely to take risks than females. Young males are 2.1 more likely to be in a fatal accident but the rates start converging and by age 60 there isn't a difference in the fatal accident rate. But for non-fatal accidents females consistently are more likely to be involved. I couldn't find any data on insurance rates by gender, do you have a source for that?
It's the conversation, (Score:3, Insightful)
not the holding of the device, as anybody who'd thought this through even for a second was saying back when "hands-free" was being touted as a safety feature.
Re:It's the conversation, (Score:5, Insightful)
Holding the device always makes it worse, especially when dialing. Especially in a stick-shift.
Many drivers communicate all the time while driving, on the radio or more modern cell-phone based alternative. They have before cell phones existed. It's the driver who's dangerous, not the phone.
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It's the driver who's dangerous, not the phone.
Phones don't kill people, conversations do.
Re:It's the conversation, (Score:4, Interesting)
The joke falls flat because every single professional driver with a dispatcher (from taxis to police to heavy trucks) has conversations while driving, often involving reaching for a map. It comes down to the driver.
Re:It's the conversation, (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike your amateur drivers, a single DUI or license suspension ends your budding career. The weak have already been weeded out to some degree.
The threshold for reproduction is marginally less for drivers of POVs.
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The joke falls flat because every single professional driver with a dispatcher (from taxis to police to heavy trucks) has conversations while driving
I don't understand your point. Are you saying that professional drivers don't have accidents?
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Actually, you are saying that PROFESSIONAL drivers have conversations and don't get into abnormal amounts of wrecks. Ok, I believe that. The bad part is that most drivers are amateurs.
I drive two hours a day on the interstate (not a "professional", just reasonably cautious with phone features built into car and never text and drive). You would be amazed at how many "professional" truck drivers I see crossing the line while fiddling with a phone. Whether they are texting or calling, I don't know. I don'
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I call BS on that, or having passengers talking to you cause accidents.
Ham radio operators talk on the radio all the time and dont have accidents at that rate, Semi truck drivers use a CB heavily and also dont.
Hell us kids throwing crap and constantly yelling "DAD HE IS HITTING ME!" should have had my family dead in a ditch 80X a year.
The problem is not talking it's the morons texting and checking email/facebook.
Re:It's the conversation, (Score:4, Insightful)
Ham radio operators talk on the radio all the time and dont have accidents at that rate,
Two things.
First an anecdote - I know a ham who did HF CW in his car while driving.
Second, I really wonder how they defined a cell phone as being involved in an accident. Did they just record any accident where a phone was someplace visible to the driver? Did they record any accident where a call was in progress? Did they try to determine if the call itself contributed to the accident? Did fault come into it? If you're parked talking on the phone and somebody rear-ends you, does that count as a phone-involved accident?
These stats might be really telling us that lots of cars have cell phones in them.
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These stats might be really telling us that lots of cars have cell phones in them.
Not just Agreed.... that is probably exactly what the stats are telling us ---- And not, how dangerous (or benign) cell phones are.
Imagine how many accidents there are where the vehicle radio or air conditioning is turned on!
Just because two things are happening at the same time, doesn't mean they are related.
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Second, I really wonder how they defined a cell phone as being involved in an accident. Did they just record any accident where a phone was someplace visible to the driver? Did they record any accident where a call was in progress? Did they try to determine if the call itself contributed to the accident? Did fault come into it? If you're parked talking on the phone and somebody rear-ends you, does that count as a phone-involved accident?
These stats might be really telling us that lots of cars have cell phones in them.
Ah, someone who thinks along the lines I do. The one I get here in the islands on US AM radio speaks of 1 in every X fatal accidents involves a pedestrian. (I think X=4)
So I say, right, so when a pedestrian jumps in front of a car causing teh driver to swerve and plunge into a deep roadside canal and die, are they counting that as a fatal accident involving a pedestrian? What about one where two cars collide head on and a pedestrian is "involved" as the only witness?
all the best,
drew
Passengers ARE THERE TOO (Score:3, Insightful)
Many magic tricks work based upon how predictably easy it is to distract humans.
Passengers are also paying some attention and CAN more than compensate for the distraction they create. (NOTE: I used the word "can.")
It only takes an instant of looking at the wrong place to miss the magic trick. Same with driving except the result is not enjoyable.
Many of the stereo systems I've seen are a disaster, you could die just trying to change the station and when new they have too much of a learning curve - plus all t
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So, if the driver talks to someone, he is so distracted as to be unable to pay proper attention to the road..
But if a passenger talks, he can still pay attention to the road.
Something is inconsistent here....
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I call BS on that, or having passengers talking to you cause accidents.
According to studies [wikipedia.org], passengers can observe when it is safe to talk and therefore conversations with them are less of a risk than conversations on a cell phone.
Ham radio operators talk on the radio all the time and dont have accidents at that rate, Semi truck drivers use a CB heavily and also dont.
I don't think you're interpreting the results correctly. Of all the accidents Ham radio operators or truck-drivers get into, what percentage involve their radio(s)? That's the question.
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I really don't think a cell phone is any more dangerous than any of these. The only problem here is complainers.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
IMO roll out the self driving cars and be done with it.
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And our fatalities were caused by HIGHWAY HEAD, not cissy cell phones!
Did the accident rate increase? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fatalities went down, did indeed the ratio/amount of traffic accidents go down? I doubt that.
The accident ratio went down because of:
safer cars
safer roads
better street signs
speed limits
traffic jams
Pick your reasons.
Certainly not because people now use cell phones.
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It doesn't matter if the total accident rate has increased or decreased. There are lots of things that can cause the total accident rate to increase or decrease.
The problem is that there is solid research showing that you are 4x as likely to have a crash when you are using a cell phone (McEvoy et al (2005); Redelmeier & Tibshirani (1997)). This has been measured with actual data from emergency department visits and property damage only accident reports.
The report also states that 9% of drivers are using
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It does matter- take away phones and you could see the total number of accidents stay the same- now with phone distractions replaced with 'HE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE!' ie: not paying attention.
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>The problem is that there is solid research showing that you are 4x as likely to have a crash when you are using a cell phone (McEvoy et al (2005); Redelmeier & Tibshirani (1997)). This has been measured with actual data from emergency department visits and property damage only accident reports.
That is not solid research. That is bad sampling.
Sampling only the journeys that ended up in an accident is the most heavily biased sampling you can perform.
Just because it sounds official doesn't mean they u
News just in: 100% accidents tied to breathing (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a very stupid and misleading statistic. I've seen statements like this on Slashdot before, and in my local paper, so I did look up the numbers, and the accident and fatality rates have both been dropping steadily since before handheld cell phones even existed. Almost 100% of the population has cell phones, and they are being used in some manner or another off and on continuously throughout the day. So of course they are being used during a significant number of accidents, because they're being us
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Unfortunately we'd still need to control for other variables, such as various driver-aiding subsystems. The sad fact of the matter is that the chaotic nature of reality makes establishing almost any relationship beyond "tied to" impossible.
Re:Did the accident rate increase? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should see how the books are cooked for "alcohol-related" crashes. Beer in the trunk of the car that was blindsided? Alcohol-related! Agenda-driven statistics.
I can certainly believe 1-in-4 if you include passengers in the not-at-fault car on the phone as "phone related"
Remember, there are lies, damn lies, and anonymous posts on the internet! Or something like that.
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> I can certainly believe 1-in-4 if you include passengers in the not-at-fault car on the phone as "phone related"
Indeed. It all depends on how you count the incidents.
Once upon a time, someone staggered into the street as I was making a right turn out of a parking lot, put his hands on my fender, did a pirouette in front of my car and collapsed. I didn't actually touch his body with the car. He started to get up, someone screamed "oh my god, is he alive??" and he made a conscious decision (in my opin
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"An estimated 5 percent of cell phone-related crashes involve texting, while 21 percent involve drivers talking on handheld or hands-free cell phones"
So they specifically ruled out passengers. It's possible that roughly 21% of all miles driven involve a driver talking on the phone?
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>Even if there's been no rise in accident rate after cellphones became ubiquitous, that doesn't mean phoning or texting while driving isn't dangerous.
Or is.
Most of the time it's correct to admit you don't know either way.
going to make even more criminals (Score:2)
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Damn straight. Maybe we could revive the old Norse code - it's only murder if you try to hide it. Announce it to everyone and it's just a killing - you pay wereguild to their family to avoid retribution and life goes on. But if you try to hide it and get caught you get declared a "wolf in hallowed places" (literal translation) and it's open season for anyone who want to take a shot at you.
About Fucking Time. (Score:3, Insightful)
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And bring back manual spark advance while you're at it.
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>And bring back manual spark advance while you're at it.
As long as I can write and android app to automatically tweak it in time with the music.
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Hmm, it has potential. And I say that as someone who dislikes manual transmissions. Sadly if we move to electric vehicles transmissions of any kind mostly cease to be a relevant concept, and I can't support anything that would artificially slow that change.
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Brand new cars are for chumps.
Get a clean used Honda S-2000.
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Seatbelts are even more dangerous than texting (Score:2)
1 in 3 are Alcohol (Score:2)
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehicl... [cdc.gov]
So:
30% Alcohol related
25% Cellphone related
5% Texting (separate?)
-----
60% of accidents could be eliminated if people would stop using cellphones, texting and driving drunk.
That would be really nice.
Re:1 in 3 are Alcohol (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually better done and accurate studies would be even better.
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60% of accidents could be eliminated if people would stop using cellphones, texting and driving drunk.
That assumes that cellphones, texting, and driving drunk were the causal elements in the accidents and not just contributing or correlated with. I.e., I'm talking on a cellphone when an 18 wheeler runs a red light and t-bones me. Would not being on the cellphone have prevented that accident? Probably not.
And it also ignores the fact that eliminating some causal elements doesn't mean it eliminates the accidents altogether. I'm using a cellphone and am distracted, crash. Prohibit cellphone use, I may switch
Statistics suck (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what is more dangerous than cellphones in cars? Breast. No lie.
It is a fact that in over 50% of all accidents there were at LEAST 2 breasts in the car at the time. Often times 4 or more! Breasts are twice as likely to be involved in any accident that cellphone or penises. I call for an immediate ban on breasts in moving vehicles. They can be near them while the car is at rest, preferably at a car show, both otherwise they more dangerous than drunk driving!!!
That's, of course, unless you want to actually use statistics for something other than alarmism.
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It's even worse in two car accidents. Fully 75+% of those involve breasts.
Sense not 100% of accidents are 1 car; the majority of accidents are breast related.
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Re:Statistics suck (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, make sure that every time I drive my penis is outside the vehicle.
WHere is the paper (Score:2)
they base this on? every other 'estimate' was based on a guess'
Literally, based on guess. Not based on call or text logs. Just there where x amount of accidents, 70% have cell phones, so we will just say a 3rd of those were caused by cell phone use without even checking if they where that many on the phone.
I don't believe 26% of accidents where cause by cellphones, and I won't until some actual good studies are done.
Re:WHere is the paper (Score:5, Informative)
If you'd bothered to RTFA where they explain the research and the methodology, it would have answered your questions... Yes, it's based on actual "good studies" and no, it's not just a guess.
Here's a clue for the clueless: McEvoy et al (2005); Redelmeier & Tibshirani (1997)
Passengers (Score:3)
What I want to know is what percentage of accidents involve at least one vehicle containing at least one passenger beyond the driver of that vehicle. I don't know for certain, but I'd imagine it's something up around 80%-90% or more. I think it's pretty safe to assume that if there is a passenger in the car, the driver probably spends at least some of their concentration paying attention to that person and/or talking to them. Just think of it, we could eliminate almost ALL accidents if we just outlawed the carrying of passengers... /s
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Or they had the grace to _shush_ when the driver was dealing with a crazy intersection.
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What I want to know is what percentage of accidents involve at least one vehicle containing at least one passenger beyond the driver of that vehicle.
Even worse, in 100% of cases a human was (perhaps nominally in some cases) in charge of the vehicle - a problem we do appear to be finally making some headway on solving.
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A normal passenger shuts up when he senses a dangerous situation, or may even alert the driver to a situation.
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Careful studies of actual evidence have been done on this. No one has found an actual correlation.
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Actually, I remember reading a study a while back covering this very subject. In fact, having passengers in the car engaged in conversation actually improved driver alertness because the passengers would pause talking, stiffen, make a sharp breathing noise, or other indications of tension causing the driver to be on alert even when otherwise oblivious to the driving risk.
In practice, it's like having "more eyes on the road" even when they aren't driving.
FFS (Score:3)
This is the same bad statistics that gets repeated every 3 or 4 months on Slashdot, from some stupid newspaper article.
Looking at the number of accidents involving phones tells you nothing.
It could be that a greater proportion of non-accident journeys involved phones.
It could be that the accident rate would be higher without the phones because people are taking more care driving to compensate for operating a phone.
How about taking a random sampling of car journeys and seeing the relative prevalence of phone use between accident and non-accident car journeys? It would have to be a very large study because the accident rate relative to the car-journey rate is very low. It would have to be a random sampling from a larger sample population to suppress confounding effects.
Good statistics over human behaviors with small effects is very hard to do because it requires big studies. But we know exactly how to do it.
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Politicians like narratives, not statistics. Solid statistics, especially if they don't support banning things or passing rules that make you look more important, don't tend to advance your career.
Some real statistics. (Score:3)
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/P... [dot.gov]
An NHSTA sponsored study says at any given moment during the day, 5% of Americans are driving while using a cell phone.. The study has some caveats - it relied on phone surveys, visual road-side observations, and only goes up to 2011, so may be significantly under-reporting cell phone usage. I estimate that number is closer to 10% based on casual observation while driving. So in a two -car accident that gives a 10% chance of a cell phone used in one of the cars. If the
where is the data for this study? (Score:3)
Bring Darwin Back! (Score:4, Insightful)
We need to replant trees by the sides of roads. You know, the ones they dug out because drivers kept hitting them. This will give inattentive drivers something better to crash into than other road users, hopefully removing only one set of DNA from the gene pool.
Missing some crucial info (Score:2)
Just to make up some numbers to illustrate the point, say 50% of the time drivers were on their cell phones. If cell phones were linked with just 25% of accidents, then that would actually mean cell phones made driving safer. The 50% of cars where the driver used a cell phone accounted for 25% of accidents; the 50% of cars where the driver didn't use a cell phone accounted for 75% of accidents.
I'm pretty sure cell phone use does increase the accid
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People who are good at thinking clearly about statistics don't often find their way into the telling-other-people-what-to-do business, sadly.
Its all bs (Score:4, Informative)
Back in the 70s the same people would say cigarette smoking caused crashes because a large % of drivers smoked. Studies have shown that talking on a cell phone is as 'distracting' as talking to somebody else in the car. And given the exuberance to ban cell phone use, can we tackle the most serious problem facing drivers?
Last I checked driving fatalities have been on a downward slope forever. Please stop the safety nanny crowd before it is too late.
Is this only mutliple car accidents? (Score:2)
'Involve' is the key word.. very deceiving. (Score:2)
Like "alcohol-related' accidents, where the police are required to check a box if either driver, whether to blame or not for the accident, and whether or not either is actually impaired, if they had a drink earlier in the day.
Same goes here, I suspect, padding the numbers because somebody was having a conversation at some point in their drive, and considered "involved" even if the driver who had the call wasn't to blame for the accident.
All this does is serve the personal agendas of "safety experts" who hav
Bad statistics warning (Score:2)
What fraction of driving time do people spend on the phone? If people are on the phone 25% of the time (which seems reasonable, looking at folks on the Beltway) then this statistic is expected.
These safety trolls need to do a proper study: "what fraction of drivers who crash were on the phone" compared to "what fraction of drivers who didn't crash were on the phone". Talking with a headset on is less distracting than talking to someone in the passenger seat, as there is no other person to look at.
At the ver
I am an attractive lady, you insensitive clod! (Score:2)
What safety advocates? (Score:2)
The Slashdot summary says "safety advocates." The first link says "safety advocates" but doesn't specify who those are.
WHO IS LOBBYING FOR A CELLPHONE BAN ON THE ROADS?
Please advise. My bet is the [required mandatory] insurance lobby.
E
Define "Involve" (Score:3)
I don't see a solid definition of what constitutes a crash involving a cell phone.
If the phone is strapped to the dashboard streaming music with the screen off... does that count? The phone is "in use"
If I'm driving and my passenger is texting... and someone runs a red light, hitting us. Does that constitute a crash involving a cell phone?
If my phone is providing turn by turn directions for me, does that make the cut?
If I'm stopped a a red light and talking on my phone, when someone rear ends me...?
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
Ambiguous syntax implies intentionally loose constraints, imo.
Junk (Score:3)
This is a page out of MADD's playbook.
Accident report forms are used to collect statistical data. Like a game of Telephone, as you get further from the event, the more the "data" reflects the currently prevailing biases.
Here is an example, one that has been documented by researchers trying to figure out where bullshit MADD claims were coming from:
Drunk pedestrian steps out in front of a car, gets hit and killed. The "Fatality" box gets checked, of course. The pedestrian's alcohol box also gets checked.
Now a researcher comes along and compiles them into alcohol-involved vs alcohol-free.
Then a second researcher comes along and looks at the alcohol-involved accidents and counts how many of them were fatalities. Sadly, this guy doesn't bother looking at the primary data, he just assumes that the alcohol involved was in the blood of the driver that caused the accident.
Bam! A drunk pedestrian has morphed into a drunk driver. And since there is lots of money to be had by producing statistics that support neo-prohibition, and none to speak of for honest research, the "researchers" are rewarded for their apathy.
Now imagine a checkbox on the accident report form labelled "cell phone present"...
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And moving .08 up to a reasonable number.
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The problem is a safe limit is a very personal thing - I've known people with enough driving skill and experience that I'd mostly trust them behind the wheel even when damn near falling down drunk. I've also known people I barely trust behind the wheel stone-cold sober. I certainly wouldn't trust the second group behind the wheel after a drink or two, much less after the 3-5 it'd take most people to reach 0.08 BAC. It's all about *how* impaired they are, and how capable they were to begin with.
Perhaps som
Re:great (Score:5, Insightful)
You ever tried driving one of the high-fidelity simulators (rFactor, etc) that let you record a professional-grade analysis of your driving? Given the known effects of alcohol on the human nervous system I find it *highly* unlikely that you drive as well drunk as sober, though there may be a "sweet spot" where your sense of flow is amplified enough to more than offset your reduced reaction times - I've certainly noticed such an effect myself. Provided of course nothing unexpected happens (one of the benefits of a racing simulator over a real road filled with a never-ending supply of reckless idiots)
My own observations have been that my lap times may improve considerably while intoxicated, at least when I'm "on", but my crashes are likewise far more... cinematic shall we say. And frequent. And not infrequently rather embarrassing - for example missing a full-throttle curve when distracted by a passing thought. There's a reason I don't drive real cars if I've had a few.
And if you don't think you're drunk then you're probably one of the people I wouldn't trust behind the wheel - recognizing just how impaired you are, despite the lack of obvious symptoms, seems to be a good 0-th order approximation of your ability to behave responsibly under the influence. Unless you're a metabolic freak your reflexes *are* severely impaired - if you're not aware of that then it means your judgement is severely impaired as well.
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My android phone does this.
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Nooooooope. Not taking my phone. Nope.
And what, exactly, are you going to do about it, big man?
Not that anyone's actually coming to take your phone, anyway. They'll just fine you or take you to court for using it while driving, because it's a distraction while you're in charge of what is, without proper driver control, a motorised battering ram.
So, don't drive like a dick, and no-one will take your phone! Problem solved! Don't like getting speeding tickets? Don't speed! Plenty more sage advice where that came from.
Or just keep driving while yac
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Demonstrate first that driving talking using a wireless headset is significantly more dangerous than other things which are legal (driving with kids in the car, say) and then we'll talk. Believe it or not, it is possible (and common) to talk on the phone while driving and not drive like a dick. It is also possible (and common) to drive like a dick without a cellphone.
What I'll do about it is live in a state where citizens tend to push back against abuse of authority by their government. Soap, ballot, jury,
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Here's a question: Would the black box tell you how many of these accidents would have happened even if there was no cell phone involved? If so, let's see it. (I honestly don't know.)
As it is, this one in four figure is useless, and all it does is add to the fire for people who just like to bitch about other people using cell phones (I know people who bitch about other people using cell phones while walking or even sitting, which poses no harm to anybody.)
Why is it useless? Well, today we happen to have a l
Re:Easy stats to pull (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a question: Would the black box tell you how many of these accidents would have happened even if there was no cell phone involved? If so, let's see it. (I honestly don't know.)
Given that driving using a mobile phone seriously inhibits your ability to concentrate on driving and that the main cause of accidents is driver error, its a very good assumption.
Far better than the assumption that they would have had the accident anyway.
Your strawman depends on no other factors being involved. It's like claiming drivers are safer since the 80's because fatalities have reduced, this completely ignores the advent and rise of ABS, the seatbelt pre-tensioner as well as crackdowns on speed and drunk driving (and awareness campaigns on driver fatigue).
The figures aren't sensationalist when they're true.
And if they help morons on phones realise that they are morons for being on the phone whilst driving, it's extremely helpful.
Re:Easy stats to pull (Score:5, Insightful)
Far better than the assumption that they would have had the accident anyway.
The figures aren't sensationalist when they're true.
They aren't true. They are meaningless. I have a friend who is a real estate
agent who is always on his phone when he is in the car. Close to 100%.
Extrapolating out these meaningless statitics to 100% it would mean that
if everybody constantly talked on their phones while in the car like my friend
then 100% of all accidents are caused by cell phone use.
These stats are the equivalent of saying 1 in 4 accidents involve the radio
or 1 in 4 accidents involve someone drinking a soft drink while driving.
People talk on cell phones, listen to the radio, and drink soft drinks while
driving but that doesn't mean any of the 3 cause a 25% increase in accidents
anymore than saying 25% of accidents involve passengers means that
the passengers are a direct cause of the accidents.
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Here's a question: Would the black box tell you how many of these accidents would have happened even if there was no cell phone involved? If so, let's see it. (I honestly don't know.)
Given that driving using a mobile phone seriously inhibits your ability to concentrate on driving and that the main cause of accidents is driver error, its a very good assumption.
Far better than the assumption that they would have had the accident anyway.
Not necessarily. The report in question is an estimate based on previous studies, including one from 2005 which originally suggested the 1 in 4 number. That 2005 paper decided that cell phone usage was "associated" with the accident if the phone was being used up to 10 minutes before the crash. So in other words, an accident was counted if a driver had a brief conversation, hung up the phone, put it away, drove five miles, and then was hit by someone running a red light. It's pretty easy to see that this a
Re:Easy stats to pull (Score:5, Insightful)
(I know people who bitch about other people using cell phones while walking or even sitting, which poses no harm to anybody.)
Yes, people like myself who have had to dodge one too many chatterboxes that think it's okay to just step into the street in front of someone riding a bicycle. After all, Brenda has a new boyfriend and she met him on Craigslist ... ewwww!
The fact is that people are too, "well that's only other people, that's not me!" and then they proceed to dial a phone call that could have easily waited until back at the office parking lot or whatever. The false sense of urgency people have simply because they can is getting ridiculous. I can accept that probably 1% of phone calls are actually urgent. What I can't accept is the 75% of calls that people think are ugent. What's the old saying, "Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part." Until it is determined that people will behave responsibly, other people will want to legislate that irresponsible behavior away from them. I don't think it has anything to do with "not being a part of their conversation" but rather that people would prefer to live in a world where they aren't surrounded by people chatting casually on a phone and being oblivious to the world around them.
Re:Easy stats to pull (Score:4, Insightful)
If you gather the data, from say the National Highway Safety Administration (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/), you will see that in spite of there being more cars on the road, there are HALF as many deaths from car accidents in 2012 as there were in 1970 (when almost no one had a car phone). This is an amazing number, because the other half of the coin is there are nearly 10x as many people driving. The figures for injuries follow. Yes, there are dozens of reasons for this, including better car safety, slower speeds (i.e. traffic jams), seat belt use, etc. But that does not matter: our safety increases anyway!
Therefore, because it has the effect of invalidating the entire discussion, the inconvenient data was neglected. I have the same issue as "alcohol related accidents", they set blood-alcohol thresholds pretty arbitrarily and are constantly lowering them based on reactions, not based on scientific study.
Re:Easy stats to pull (Score:5, Interesting)
As it is, this one in four figure is useless, and all it does is add to the fire for people who just like to bitch about other people using cell phones (I know people who bitch about other people using cell phones while walking or even sitting, which poses no harm to anybody.)
I know this is anecdotal, but I'd say 80% of the close-calls I've had whilst riding my motorcycle were caused by folks talking on their phone, completely oblivious to me in the lane next to them. The nice thing about a bike is I can move out of the way quickly and safely, and I also sit as high or higher than 90% of drivers on the road - and can see in to their car really easy to see them texting or talking and look up startled as I honk and swerve... I've even turned in video footage (I have a helmet cam) to drivers who were especially egregious - hard to deny you were texting/talking when there is a good chunk of video proving it.
Distracted driving - of which phones are a major contributor because it is interactive (usually 2 way communication, as compared to the one way of a broadcast radio/satellite/CD source) - is a serious danger. If something is SO IMPORTANT that you have to talk on the phone NOW - then pull over. Thirty seconds won't kill you - but it might kill someone else.
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly, there are still a lot of people who will claim that even in cases like you describe, the phone had nothing to do with the bad driving.
I'll share a personal anecdote from yesterday. I was driving on some back streets on my way to a friend's house, the kind of roads where cars are parked down both sides so you've only got space for one car at a time in between (traffic can't pass in opposite directions without someone pulling over to give way).
As I'm coming up to a crossroads, someone in a 4x4, a big v
"I WILL GIVE UP MY MOBILE..." (Score:5, Funny)
"When you PRY it from my COLD, DEAD... oh, yeah. Well, never mind. Carry on and all that."
Re: (Score:3)
Laws against cell phone use have not reduced accident rates.
That proves nothing, unless you can show that the law actually succeeded in substantially reducing cell-phone use in cars.
e.g. with data from the carriers showing reduced cell handovers. Were the laws strongly enforced and publicised?
Re:"I WILL GIVE UP MY MOBILE..." (Score:5, Interesting)
People have been studying this in excruciating detail for years. While there is a strong correlation between cell-phone use and accidents, any evidence of causation is glaringly absent.
There have been plenty of studies in which drivers perform certain tasks, either while using a phone or not. Some have drivers doing both, one after the other, some have half and half split randomly. In all these studies, those using phones (including hands free) did significantly worse.
I'd be interested to know what you think causes those using phones to do worse in these studies.
Re: "I WILL GIVE UP MY MOBILE..." (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's two sets of focused drivers. One set is driving, the other set is driving and on the phone.
Using a phone does decrease your ability to drive well. Just because other things also decrease your ability to drive well too, does not mean that we should not try to deal with people using phones when driving.
Re: (Score:3)
How can having a cell phone in one hand not be more dangerous? One hand on the steering wheel, one hand holding the phone and one hand shifting gears. Fine if you're a Motie.
But seriously, carrying on a conversation with someone not in the car is distracting, especially as the other end has no idea what is happening around the car.
The problem with the laws is that it just makes people more distracted as they try to hide the fact that they're using the phone. A law by itself is not the solution.
Re: (Score:3)
"How can having a cell phone in one hand not be more dangerous?"
You are displaying exactly the kind of mindset that is the whole problem here.
"It is so obvious that talking on cell phones causes accidents, that we should just pass laws against it before we do any studies on the actual causes."
"it is obvious that holding a cell phone to your ear is more dangerous than using a hands-free device."
This is the thing with science: it often shows us things that seem to be obvious, but that aren't true.
Here are some statistics that people seem to consistently find s
Re: (Score:3)
Studies have addressed the puzzling fact that there is a correlation between cell phone talking but no correlation to be found with talking to a passenger. The dominant theory is that the passenger is within the same context as the driver, so if something happens around the car that requires the driver's attention it does not seem odd to the passenger that they stopped talking in the middle of a sentence.. and the passenger does not start saying "hello?? are you there?".
In the case of the radio, attention i