Picture Courtesy of cartalk.com
Tom & Ray Magliozzi of Cartalk fame have devoted extensive space on their web site towards the dangers of driving and using a cell phone. Now the AAA Foundation is getting into the mix with a recent study that suggests brains, cell phones and steering wheels only work well if you want to make a classic blood gore flick.
The study can be found here with the usual fact sheets and statistical extrapolations that have been publicized hundreds of times in the past. This study is not groundbreaking to the common commuters among us. But it does bring forth a question that I can’t seem to let go as it pertains to all of us here.
Has anyone here not seen at least, say, 30 or so dangerous drivers yakking away on their cell phones?
I average about three a week here in Atlanta. However your neck of the woods may be different. Feel free to share your insights and experiences with us! Extra credit will go to those of you who honked your horn and made that cell phone pop out of the driver side window and shatter into a million pieces.
I see it all the time. It’s especially obvious when you’re riding a bike and trying to catch a driver’s eye. They’ll look right at you and not see you.
I also love the parents who drop their kids off at our school, hop in their Tahoe, then start texting and trying to drive with half an eye on the road. But hey, their kids are safe and sound in school!
Even with a handsfree law in place here in Oregon I still see at least 3 a day, and I don’t even commute.
I’m not quite sure that this topic goes with the format here. But I’ll let you folks make that decision.
In any case, the latest AAA report doesn’t focus on phones. What it argues is that other in-car technology, namely voice-activated email, is worse than using a phone. They’re trying to suggest that the new infotainment systems are increasing the alleged problem beyond what we had a few years ago.
And the problem with these studies is the very same problem that we had with all of the studies that predicted death and destruction when the 55 mph speed limit was eliminated. The studies assume that longer reaction times will necessarily result in more crashes.
But while you can rig-up a statistical model to “prove” that on paper, that doesn’t necessarily happen in the real world. As it turns out, drivers make adjustments to cope with the additional reaction time, effectively offsetting the risks associated with it.
I glanced at the AAA report itself, and shows nominal increases in reaction time. But it also shows that drivers opt to keep more distance between themselves and the car ahead of them when they are distracted. And that’s true even though the test was designed to discourage them from keeping what the test determined to be too much distance.
At some point, we may have an epiphany and realize that the distracted driving chatter has been a bit hysterical. That’s not to say that distracted driving is good, per se, but that some drivers will replace distracted driving with some other bad behavior when the infortainment or phone aren’t available. It’s a human nature problem, more than it is a technology problem.
Well that explains why the driver in the left lane is going slower than the rest of the traffic flow while on the phone. They are being safe(r) by compensating for longer reaction time. I am SO glad to finally learn that they are doing the rest of us a favor.
There are plenty of people who drive slowly in the fast lane. You need to avoid getting caught up in the error of selection bias, i.e. seeing what you’re looking for, not seeing what you’re not looking for, while missing the totality of data.
Lane discipline is bad in the US because very few people care about it. In Europe, it’s practically a cultural value, and most people will abide by the law.
But in the US, we don’t have many laws requiring it, plus we have a bunch of people who don’t want to be told what to do and are going to drive in whatever damn lane that they choose. Which is to say that we have more people who don’t want to play nicely and who think that they have a “right” to be discourteous.
I don’t know why you felt compelled to correct me as I never said that all slow drivers are on their cell phones. I only pointed out that I now understand why drivers on their cell phones are dropping back from the traffic ahead of them.
Seems you got caught up in the error of selection bias.
I see stupid drivers all day long Steve especially talking on cell fones now Illegal here. I drive trucks all sorts of trucks tonite I’m linehauling a 480hp V8 Scania yesterday I was cruising town in a Hino(good) concrete mixer I’m permitted to talk on the fleetlink or CB as I’m considered ‘TRAINED” and can multi task behind the wheel your basic car driver has very little skill or training and are often easily distracted from the main task in hand, driving where as I am a professional and know what I’m doing in my 50tonne vehicle.
Y;all dont want to honk distracted drivers Ive watched the ensueing caos from my high perch and have to pick a path thru the mess the average car drivers skill set is not very great and please trust me when I tell you certain cars handle poorly when pushed to their limits I watch them go SPLAT.
It’s banned everywhere in Europe. I learned it the hard way back in 1999 when I got a 250 € fine by the Mossos de Esquadra (Catalan police). We didn’t have a point-based driver’s license back then, but it’s about 3 (out of 12) points less…
Once this said, I just saw a guy on a Mini right in front of my house (Barcelona city center). I guess that he was never fined…
All this distraction on behalf of other drivers and close calls while driving my car led me to never riding a motorcycle again. Rode motorcycles extensively 15+ years ago. No more.
I sense a disturbance in the force. There’s current auto-related news on CC.
I’ve warned Chancellor Niedermeyer and others about occurrences like this in the past…But I guess this the price to pay for hiring Steve Lang….Sigh….
On the topic of distracted driving, I am concerned at the number of people driving “high”.
I walk 10 kilometres daily to and from work along a busy thoroughfare, and smell strong
marijuana from at least 2-3 passing cars on a typical day. I have no idea how driving under the influence of marijuana compares to cellphone/electronics use or driving drunk,
in terms of driver distraction or reaction time. But I think it’s definitely on the increase.
There was a legal case in Nebraska where the kid driver was doing bong hits at the wheel….and his front left tire blew out causing a deadly crash. The HW trooper tampered with the evidence of the tire blowing out to avoid a causation issue? The kid was acquitted on manslaughter…..and the Trooper forever hated god damned lawyers.
Three a week? Shoot, I see ten times that number if I have to drive into Chicago for something, and that’s inside the city limits. Granted that’s in a mere matter of hours (sometimes as little as one hour). There’s a hands-free law in the city, but even the cops seem to willfully ignore it.
Just got back to NZ from Europe. Our taxi driver in Naples (’02ish E-Class Merc) was texting and driving at the same time as reading his day’s bookings, fiddling with the aircon, travelling at double the posted 60 km/h speed limit, and straddling two lanes…