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Distracted Driving: Should Talking, Texting Be Banned?
Augst 24, 2009 — Most of us are neither pilots nor astronauts. We are not trained to steer large, hurtling hulks of steel and gasoline while manipulating small computers. So there's something blindingly obvious about the risks of texting while driving. Yet research is beginning to show that driving while simply talking on a cell phone — including using hands-free technology — can prove dangerous, even deadly. In late July, the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) released hundreds of pages of a previously buried 2003 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study that identified the cell phone as a serious safety hazard when used on the road. A bill introduced last month in the Senate would require all states to impose a ban on texting while driving; 17 states (including, most recently, Illinois, on Aug. 6) and the District of Columbia have passed such a ban, and seven states have outlawed driver use of handheld communication devices altogether. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood considers cell phones such a problem that he is planning a summit next month to discuss the dangers of driving while distracted. And though it's impossible to accurately gauge how many car accidents nationwide are cell phone related, David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, estimates that only 2% of people are able to safely multitask while driving. (Read "Text-Messaging Behind the Wheel.") Strayer, who for more than a decade has been studying the effects driving and cell-phone use have on the brain, says those 2% are probably the same people who would be really good fighter pilots. Rarities. Some of Strayer's other findings show that most drivers tend to stare straight ahead while using a cell phone and are less influenced by peripheral vision. In other words, "cell phones," he says, "make you blind to your own bad driving." And even though the common assumption is that hands-free technology has mitigated the more dangerous side effects of cell-phone use — it's just like talking to someone sitting next to you, isn't it? — a series of 2007 simulator tests conducted by Strayer seems to indicate the opposite. A passenger acted as another set of eyes for the driver in the test and even stopped or started talking depending on the difficulty of conditions outside the car. Meanwhile, half the drivers talking on a hands-free phone failed, bypassing the rest area the test had called for them to stop at. Part of the problem may be that when people direct their attention to sound, the visual capacity of their brain decreases, says Steven Yantis, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. It can be as if a driver is seeing the image in her head of the person she is talking to, thereby decreasing her ability to see what's actually in front of her. "When people are listening to a cell-phone conversation, they're slower to respond to things they're looking at," Yantis says. "It requires you to select one thing at the cost of being less able to respond to other things." This may explain why participants in one of Strayer's simulator studies were faster to brake and caused fewer crashes when they had a .08% blood-alcohol content than while sober and talking on a cell phone. Scientists at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute are skeptical, however, of simulator studies. In July the institute released a data analysis of the behavior of scores of drivers who agreed to have a camera placed in their vehicle for a year or so. After examining footage that preceded crashes and near crashes, the researchers concluded that while manual manipulation of a cell phone (dialing and texting) led to a greater risk of an accident, simple participation in a phone conversation (talking or listening) did not lead to a statistically significant increase in risk. The study will be presented next month at the first international conference on driver distraction and inattention, in Göteborg, Sweden. In spite of the proliferation of anti-cell-phone laws, drivers' habits don't appear to be changing. A 2008 Nationwide Mutual Insurance survey found that only 63% of drivers planned to abide by laws prohibiting cell phones. So parents, employers and insurance companies are stepping in to help minimize driver distraction. In the next few months, several technology start-ups will release new products for phones that can detect when a car is in motion and automatically log incoming calls and texts much as a personal assistant would. All the products have provisions that allow both incoming and outgoing calls during emergencies. Knowing that people will be unlikely to volunteer for a service that takes away their phone privileges, Nationwide has partnered with one of the start-ups and is planning to offer a discounted rate for those who use the distraction reducer. The insurer says its discount will most likely cover the cost of Aegis Mobility's DriveAssist, which will be available next year. Meanwhile, the CAS is calling for more draconian measures. Now that it has uncovered the NHTSA research, it is filing a petition calling for all new cars to have a device installed that allows only emergency calls. "We do not see how [NHTSA] can turn down a problem that's rapidly turning out to be as bad as drunk driving," says Clarence Ditlow, CAS's executive director. "We're asking that technology be installed in cars to disable their cell phones whenever you shift out of park." Though Ditlow admits that such a move could be years away, the organization's goal remains to "make talking and driving as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving," he says. "It's just a question of when we get there." |
