CSotD: Shut up and drive

Comments ¹⁸

1. Anonymous Coward

   Here’s a simple argument against it – the accident rate is NOT going up. There is absolutely no correlation between increased cell phone use and increased accidents. The “statistics” about the dangers of using a cell phone while driving ignore several behavior changes that go on when (most) people use a cell phone while driving, such as slowing down and leaving more room behind the car in front. In theory, it’s dangerous to use a cell phone while driving. In practice, accident rates are NOT going up, and laws to restrict or ban cell phone use have absolutely NO EFFECT on the accident rate.
   My theory is that the people who get into accidents while using cell phones are the same people who get into accidents while changing a CD or radio station, while eating or drinking while driving, while changing clothes or putting on makeup or shaving while driving, while disciplining the kids or arguing with their spouse, etc. In other words, they are (mostly) people who are bad drivers, who let anything distract them from paying attention to the road. Most people know how to keep their eyes on the road even when talking with passengers, even when changing the radio station or CD, even when talking on a cell phone.
   I drive over 4000 miles a month (my job involves a lot of driving), taking photos of crashed vehicles and intersections. My interest in this is more than as an idle observer – I actually work in this industry, spend a LOT of time on the road, and see a lot of different driving behaviors. I can always tell when someone is going to do something stupid behind the wheel, and it rarely involves using a cell phone. *Sometimes* it involves using a cell phone, but it’s just the current distraction at hand for that driver, who would immediately be distracted by something else if you took their cell phone away.

2. Mary in Ohio

   And God forbid health insurance be required, though car insurance is. (Of course, the number of people who actually drive WITHOUT insurance – or with suspended licenses, for that matter – is mind-boggling.)

3. Mike Peterson

   AC, I agree with you on several points, but not all. Well, obviously, or you’d have posted hip-hip-hooray and not what you did.
   I’m aware that the IIHS has not found a correlation between cell phone bans and accident rates, but there are a couple of wild cards that make it less simple than that.
   For instance, you can put in a ban and show that X-percent of cell phone users stop driving and using phones, but the penetration of cell phones continues to rise, so that you’ve got more people on the road.
   The other part of that is that they use states without cell phone laws as a control, but the campaign to not be stupid is national, so those control states may also have a decrease in phone use by drivers. It’s a flawed control.
   The studies are potentially flawed by multiple variables that would work against proving that cell phone laws reduce accidents.
   If your argument is “education may be more effective than laws,” I’d go along with that. If the argument is “so to hell with it,” I wouldn’t.
   I agree with you that stupid people do stupid things. And it’s hard to come up with laws that outlaw stupidity without outlawing innocent things. A cup of coffee is not necessarily a huge problem — depending on your drink holders and, as you suggest, your overall competence. A regular burger, okay. A Whopper, maybe. An Angus or a McRib … now it’s getting hard to one-hand your lunch and competently drive your car.
   I don’t see the potential for a law that says you can have a Whopper Jr. but not an Angus. But I think that’s the game we play by outlawing texting and hand-held phones while allowing hands-free conversations. And I certainly wouldn’t want a law that outlawed all food and beverages in cars.
   But studies do show that having a conversation with a person who can’t see what you are seeing has a negative effect on your competence behind the wheel. And given that there is no need to talk on the cell phone while driving — as there is, for instance, to having your kids in the car — I don’t see protecting the practice as a positive.
   Can it be done by education? I suspect a law, even one hard to enforce, would be necessary to emphasize the fact that we’re serious — as is the case with seat belts.
   How far apart are we, really?

4. Anonymous Coward

   “For instance, you can put in a ban and show that X-percent of cell phone users stop driving and using phones, but the penetration of cell phones continues to rise, so that you’ve got more people on the road.
   The other part of that is that they use states without cell phone laws as a control, but the campaign to not be stupid is national, so those control states may also have a decrease in phone use by drivers. It’s a flawed control.”
   You misunderstand how controls are actually used in studies of this type of problem. They can correct for increasing cell phone usage by comparing states where laws have changed with other states (not adjacent) where cell phone usage laws have not changed, to see if there’s any change in the accident rate as cell phone usage has increased. So far, no correlation has been found. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Then, they can compare before/after accident rates in the same state, where cell phone usage doesn’t change that much in the months before/after a new law, but clearly publicity about the law and enforcement of the law would change cell phone usage while driving. Again, the accident rate Does Not Change.
   The data is pretty darn clear – there is no correlation between cell phone usage, cell phone usage laws, and accident rates.
   The people who need to be educated need to be educated about Driving Safely. Not about how to safely use cell phones in a car. These people need to learn how to use their mirrors to notice when they are driving 55 in the fast lane and traffic is piled up behind them while there’s a mile of empty lane in front of them. They need to learn to look ahead in traffic and see if traffic is slowing down AHEAD of the car in front of them, rather than just staring at the rear end of the car in front of them. They need to learn that when you are at a stop light and the light turns green this does NOT mean “it is safe to go”. It means “it is your turn to go, but CHECK to make sure other traffic is stopping before you proceed”. Etc. They need to learn defensive driving, how to take proactive measures to avoid getting into an accident. When they learn these things, learning when – and when NOT to – change the radio station, eat a burger, drink coffee, take a cell phone call, hang UP a cell phone call, etc. all become obvious, you know how to do these things safely and when NOT to do them simply because you have learned how to be a safer driver. Any education campaign which focuses solely on cell phone use is going to fail because it fails to focus on the real problem, one of learning How To Drive Safely. And any law that attempts to regulate cell phone use will also fail, because it’s security theater and most people will thumb their nose at the law.

5. Mike Peterson

   I don’t — pending finding studies that dispute the IIHS findings — disagree with you, but would repeat that seatbelt laws are the stick that makes seatbelt teaching work.
   And I’d also repeat, in agreement with you, that it’s hard to think of an enforceable law that would keep people from using them, but there is the potential for the kind of law that would pop up as an issue in post-crash analysis, given that we can find out if the person was on the phone at the time of the crash. This could impact criminal charges and gum up insurance compensation, which is something of a stick.
   And I think a stick is part of teaching this sort of thing, particularly since there isn’t much of a carrot to offer, except “not getting a ticket,” which is kind of silly.
   I would disagree with you that putting an effort into one aspect of driving safety harms an ability to promote overall safe practices, however. OTOH, if more insurance companies offered greater discounts for drivers who took defensive driving courses, it might have an impact.
   (You have reminded me of this: When I lived in Colorado, I wanted a kind of bumpersticker that could flip up on my front bumper, backwards to be read in a mirror at certain times while driving in the mountains, “If you want to lead a herd, go back to Kansas.” Boy, you want to see people lined up behind a maddeningly slow driver …)

6. Danny Boy (London Derriere)

   “These people need to learn how to use their mirrors to notice when they are driving 55 in the fast lane and traffic is piled up behind them while there’s a mile of empty lane in front of them. ”
   That’s where you give it away — that your interest in this is not actually about encouraging safe driving but enabling fast driving.
   There are all sorts of bad driving to be found on the road, and what did you pick out as your number one complaint? Going too slow (legal limit) in the fast lane. Shows where your head is at.

7. Woodrowfan

   to be fair, 55 is not the legal speed limit in many parts of the country. 65 and 70 are often the limits and out west it’s higher.
   I will pass on a debate of whether it’s rude to go the legal speed limit in the fast lane and refuse to get out of the way of traffic. But please consider whether there might be a reason for someone to go faster than just the love of speed. Maybe they’re racing to a rest stop, or someone in the car is sick. maybe they are rushing home because they miss their loved ones. Don;t be so quick to harshly judge.

8. Mike Peterson

   I just looked it up and 55 isn’t the speed limit on rural interstates anywhere, and that was what I assumed AC was referencing. It’s a topic that also gets a lot of back-and-forth over safety and what the stats show, but for sure going 10 mph or more below the speed limit in the fast lane is a hazard. For that matter, going the speed limit in the fast lane is a hazard if there are a lot of people driving faster because it leads to people weaving around you.
   “Go with the flow” is generally good, but you also shouldn’t be bullied into going faster than your are comfortable with. To reference my comment on mountain driving, tourists and others who are either terrified or just trying to take their time and enjoy the scenery are expected to pull over and let the locals get to work on time. Or, yeah, take that loved one to the hospital.
   And I defy anyone to drive 55 on the Interstate on the plains out around Brush, Colorado, where the road is so straight you could lash down the wheel and take a nap in the back seat.

9. Anonymous Coward

   The seat belt law issue is different, many studies have clearly shown that there are fewer traffic accident deaths (in the real world) when people use seat belts. Therefore there is a useful purpose for seat belt laws and enforcement. We have NO STUDIES showing that cell phone use leads to an increased accident rate in the real world.

10. Anonymous Coward

    “pending finding studies that dispute the IIHS findings — disagree with you,”
    Can you cite these studies? Are they studies showing an increasing accident rate In The Real World that correlates with increased cell phone use?
    Note: it doesn’t work to say “accidents caused by cell phone use is on the increase” because what is really happening is that law enforcement is simply assigning blame to the cell phone whenever a cell phone is In Use and an accident occurs – with absolutely no proof that the cell phone use contributed to the accident. All they are doing is shifting the blame to something new, for accidents that would have occurred anyway had the driver not had a cell phone in their hands. If the driver hadn’t been talking on a cell phone, they would have been eating a burger, putting on makeup or shaving, etc. These distracted drivers are a menace, but it’s not the tool that is in their hands that is at fault, and the faulty accident reports “blaming cell phone use” are bogus. You have to look at the overall accident rate – if cell phone use is increasing and the accident rate is staying steady, it makes absolutely no sense to blame an increasing percent of accidents (year by year) on cell phone use.
    If you subtract out the cell phone usage accidents, it would mean that the overall accident rate is declining, for no apparent reason. This Makes No Sense. In areas where laws have been passed banning cell phones by drivers, and the overall accident rate remains unchanged while cell phone use by drivers declines, then suddenly the non-cell-phone-using accident rate Goes Up. Again, this Makes No Sense.

11. Mike Peterson

    No, no, the disagreement will have to wait until those studies appear. If they ever do. They may not.
    Until then, I’m more-or-less agreeing with you, though, as I’ve noted in another comment, there was a similar back-and-forth about the changes in the speed limit. But I’m not interested in swapping links when we basically aren’t that far apart to begin with.
    As I see it, you feel driver education is sufficient while I think a law to add some urgency to compliance would be needed. But neither of us sees an all-out ban as either necessary or sufficient. Or practical.

12. Anonymous Coward

    Dannyboy, the driving slow thing is about drivers having a lack of situational awareness. If you aren’t aware of what traffic around you is doing and how you are impacting it, you are at a greater risk of getting into an accident or contributing to causing an accident to a law-abiding 3rd party.
    These “road boulders” can cause accidents when impatient drivers behind them make unsafe lane changes. If I get hit because of an impatient driver making an unsafe lane change behind a road boulder, I’m not going to just blame the unsafe lane change driver, I’m ALSO going to blame the unsafe-driving-too-slow driver. And you should too. (I witnessed an accident that happened this way a few months ago.)
    This lack of situational awareness also leads to problems with merging traffic, with looking ahead and getting out of a lane if there’s debris or a disabled vehicle ahead, etc. Drivers who don’t pay attention, don’t look ahead, swerve at the last minute. It also affects emergency vehicles. I have often seen an emergency vehicle (with lights on but not using the siren) coming up in the rear view mirror and I move to the right, most traffic moves to the right, but there’s some idiot who is NOT properly using their mirrors who remains in the left lane until the vehicle is right on their bumper and turns on the siren, and then makes an unsafe lane change to get over.

13. Anonymous Coward

    Mike, you misunderstand my position.
    You wrote: “As I see it, you feel driver education is sufficient while I think a law to add some urgency to compliance would be needed. But neither of us sees an all-out ban as either necessary or sufficient. Or practical.”
    The thing is, I don’t think a law will do anything constructive. It will not change the accident rate. It will merely create a financial penalty for doing something that can be done safely, is done safely, by millions of drivers every day, enriching the city/county/state, for no good purpose.
    There is no need for “compliance” with a cell phone while driving ban – banning cell phones while driving will not change the accident rate, just as the increasing use of cell phones over the past 10 years has Not Increased The Accident Rate.
    The problem Is Not The Phone.

14. Danny Boy (London Derriere)

    A.C., in response to your 1:15PM, actually I’m all in favor of good situational awareness, and I too get annoyed by drivers who create a side-by-side blockade. My point earlier was that I thought it revealing that you made that your first-listed concern. Maybe it was unfair to take the literal written order as marking your underlying hierarchy of concerns, and I apologize for jumping to that. But just to clarify (or perhaps muddy) the waters, would you care to explicitly agree that drivers who go too fast are more of a menace than those who go too slowly?

15. Anonymous Coward

    Danny Boy, both drivers who go too fast and drivers who go too slowly are menaces.
    The further they deviate from the flow of traffic on that road, in that lane, the more of a menace they are. But, in general, the slower drivers are more of a menace than the faster ones.
    Take a roadway where the flow of traffic is going 70, traffic is light to moderate (not overly crowded). Consider how the roadway works if you encounter one of two different drivers, one doing 60 in the fast lane (road boulder) the other one doing 80, weaving from lane to lane to pass.
    The faster driver is VERY aware of all the other cars on the road, they must be to seek out the empty slots where they can safely move to continue driving at the faster speed. Other drivers don’t need to swerve or change lanes to avoid the faster driver.
    But the slower driver doing 60 in the fast lane is causing serious congestion behind them. They are causing cars to suddenly slow, to change lanes, to watch out for faster traffic passing on the right as they change, to try to avoid running into the slower cars ahead or get stuck in a lane of slow cars as faster cars zoom by in the right lane. The slower driver is causing problems for EVERY OTHER CAR ON THE ROADWAY as they come up to the slower drivers position and try to safely pass. The faster driver is not causing nearly as many problems for other drivers.
    Both drivers should modify their driving.
    The bigger problem is that the faster driver *knows* they should modify their driving. They know they are breaking the law (speeding) and that the more often they make lane changes the more dangerous it is, and the faster they go the more dangerous it is. However, this awareness usually brings some extra alertness to the driver.
    Compare with the slower driver who often believes, falsely, that driving slower is safer. Driving the speed of traffic in the SLOW LANE is safer, but driving slower than the flow of traffic for the lane or roadway is rarely safer – exceptions for heavy vehicles on steep or twisty roads but I’m talking about cars and freeways and posted limits here. So the road boulder who goes 10 MPH slower than the flow of traffic in the fast lane is NOT driving more safely than the rest of the traffic that is going the same speed as everyone else. But since they mistakenly believe they are “driving safely” they have no heightened awareness of how their driving is affecting others. In fact, the opposite is true, they are ignoring the effects their driving has on others. This make their actions more dangerous.
    Do you disagree with this analysis?

16. Nostlagic

    I expect that at this point nobody cares much about my anecdotal take on this but i can easily see why stats on relatively high speed traffic-flow driving don’t bear out much increased danger from cell phone users. What i encounter on a very *very* regular basis is dangers on little local roads, in slower, stop-and-start drivers, whose phone use impairs their attention to stuff like: traffic light changes, their perception and processing of that flow-change is delayed and they plow into stopped traffic (or squeal tires in near misses). And turns. Into and out of business parking lots, turns in intersections. Failure to yield. Crashes or near crashes rarely deadly or even seriously injurious, but causing damage, expense, and maybe minor injury.
    One change, like so many people forming the seatbelt habit, might turn out to be that we all start looking higher up and watching the drivers, more than we watch the cars themselves.
    My essay on the addictiveness of the constant plug-in to the smartphone data stream will have to come later…

17. Sherwood

    The cell phone/transportation hazard I run into (or get run into by) on a daily basis is distracted pedestrians. Try walking across a college campus these days (or, worse, navigating a commuter-school’s parking lot) to see what I mean.

18. Anonymous Coward

    Dr. Dean Edell had a Medical Minute on the radio today where he said that the study that the NTSB was using to back their request to ban cell phone use by drivers was a faulty study, and that when they re-ran the data they found NO correlation between cell phone usage and accidents. I have not been able to find a cite to this on the web, but will keep looking.