Cell Phones and Cars

• March 15, 2009

I belong to the Triple-A and recommend it. If you ever have a breakdown while you’re on the road they can be a godsend. I had a car problem on the road on a weekend no less last year. They certainly made a bad day less bad (and found me an honest mechanic in a strange town.)
Part of your membership is a travel magazine. I was recently paging through this magazine. I found an article that claimed that cell phones made you four times more likely to be in an accident.
How can this be? Wasn’t there a time that people didn’t have cell phones? Didn’t cell phone usage skyrocket from the period 1994 to 2007?
So what happened to the traffic fatalities rate over this time. Well from a perspective of miles travels it dropped drastically. In 1994 there were 1.73 fatalities for every hundred million miles traveled. In 2007 that rate had dropped to 1.36.
Clearly cell phone usage isn’t the reason for the drop. However if cell phones made you 4 times more likely to be in an accident that number should have increased significantly rather than dropped.
I recently say a Mythbusters episode that covered this. And under the conditions that they used it did show that drivers talking on a cell phone (in a certain way) had their ability to drive (in a certain way) greatly diminished.
But the accident rates didn’t go up. So what’s going on.
Well in the Mythbusters episode the drivers had to negotiate a very challenging unfamiliar course while they were engaged in mental exercises to show that they were engaged in their cell phone conversation. I think that kind of testing is atypical from what a cell phone driver would really do.
First of all a cell phone driver is not usually deeply engaged in their conversation. They aren’t trying to solve a riddle nor are they trying to memorize a string of words. I would think your brain is much more able to gab without seriously distracting you then if you were doing those mental gymnastics.
Secondly the drivers were expected to continue on their course which was very challenging. They weren’t driving down routine roads that are traveled every day. If a driver in the real world gets challenged by events they don’t continue driving the difficult course at a prescribed speed. No, they stop or slow down which is something that is pretty much reflexive in an experienced driver.
A better test would be to have an unexpected event happen and allow the driver the option of slowing, stopping or swerving depending on the need. I think that would better judge the accident rate. Unfortunately such a test is probably impossible to arrange since the test subjects would know that something was going to happen.
I imagine that the test that the AAA magazine was referring to was conducted along the same sort of lines that the Mythbusters did. Cute experiments are interesting, but I think it’s important to validate them with real world experience.

Tags: Technology

http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable suggestion.

However the data for fatalities is pretty cut and dried. I think the data for incidents would be a lot more subjective of what was reported and how.
sayanything-5371

While the fatality rate may have gone down this does not mean that the overall accident rate has gone down. In the period whistler mentioned there was increase DUI enforcement and seat belt law enforcement.

Driving while distracted is a real problem that causes a lot of minor accidents that create delays that inconveinece us all. In my state of Oregon it seems that every other driver is yakking away on the phone. They leave lights late, don’t turn right on reds, go through crosswalks with kids in them, you name it.

Recently I made a car trip down to California where they have enacted a no talking on the phone while driving law. It was astonishing how good the driving was with almost no one on the phone. You guessed it, the few weaving idiots I saw were on the phone. Oregon is going to pass a no hand held law soon. I’m looking forward to it.
http://ptschett.livejournal.com/ ptschett

I should say “the number or percentage of fatality accidents” in my last sentence there, since fatal crashes have remained steadily in the 36,000-39,000 range.
Kay

I was hit by a driver running a red light–there were no skid marks when he hit me because he didn’t see me until we crashed. He was on a mobile phone. Some friends of ours lost an aunt and uncle because a teen driver was on a mobile phone and claimed they didn’t see the car as they were rounding the bend.

I maintain that one’s driving ability is affected by using a mobile phone because their attention is distracted. Frankly I am sick and tired of people driving while using a mobile phone. I should have a nickle for everytime I see someone running a red light and you can see they’re on a phone or they nearly come through an intersection because they’re too busy talking or where they’re coming towards you and you have to swerve to avoid them when they cross over the divider.

One time, while going to Dakota Square Mall in Minot, I was at a stoplight. A guy was yapping on a phone, coming from the opposite direction, and just kept right on going through the red light. He didn’t “see” it was red, though the people who had to slam on their brakes to avoid him could tell.
deadrody

Secondly the drivers were expected to continue on their course which was very challenging. They weren’t driving down routine roads that are traveled every day. If a driver in the real world gets challenged by events they don’t continue driving the difficult course at a prescribed speed. No, they stop or slow down which is something that is pretty much reflexive in an experienced driver.

Complete and utter nonsense. Where do you see the worst offenders on cell phones ? Highways. Seems simple enough, highway is straight, go fast. Except, every now and then it does turn and, well, quite often there is traffic, people change lanes, different people drive different speeds, and you simply cannot account for all the possibilities while busy with your brain concentrating on your conversation – and that’s all it needs to be, solving riddles isn’t necessary.

And what can you do then ? Stop or slow down ? Sorry, but no.

The real solution is to make all cars hands-free friendly, and phone in hand inoperable. Meaning no cell phone signals into the car. Have a hands free phone that can interface with the car ? Great! Otherwise, your stupid personal conversation can wait until you are done driving.
Spartacus

I’m guessing the lack of accidents can as easily be attributed to a heightened awareness on the part of defensive drivers (like me* that shut off the phone while driving) that have seen other drivers drifting left of center while yacking on the phone, as it can be said that the lack of accidents indicates cell phone usage is a minor distraction.

*I’m really an offensive driver subject to terrible road rage.
http://ptschett.livejournal.com/ ptschett

The accident rate and the fatality rate are two different things. The interesting data would be the number of all accidents, and the number of accidents where a driver was using a cell phone, and comparing those numbers through the years. The number of cell phone accidents could be increasing faster than the number of all accidents, yet the number of fatality accidents still falls because today’s safer cars turn what would be fatality accidents into injury or property-damage accidents.
Brent

There is also selection bias. Bad drivers, who are apt to find a way to get in an accident by one means or another, are now getting in accidents while on the phone, so the phone gets blamed. It’s the same illogical reasoning that is used to blame the gun for a gun murder.
FlyOnTheWall

Not going to happen but I’d also like to see total accidents around the people talking on the phone.
Another factor to throw in is that a single oblivious driver won’t generally cause an accident, it takes two or more. Once critical mass is reached driving really sucks.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

What you say makes sense, but where are the increased accidents?
Spartacus

Cell phone take just a little attention
from the task of driving.

Perhaps, but there are an awful lot of nimrods out there that can’t afford to spare the attention required to use a cell phone while driving. And then there are the ones that want to text while driving, in their case Darwin was really on to something.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

But where are the increased accidents.

I don’t really care what your impression is. If cell phones are so dangerous then there must be a corresponding increase in accidents during the rather short period of time that cell phone use became common.
WOOFX

Most drivers are lucky not to be maimed or dead.
A moment of inattention and boom.
Who hasn’t had a close call?
Cell phone take just a little attention
from the task of driving.

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