Is It Time to Ban Cell Phone Use in Cars Nationally, or am I just being Cranky?
I've been nearly picked off 3 times by young women talking on cell phones while driving. The latest was in last week's snow. As I'm about to pull out, I spot this small foreign car traveling at full speed. I slammed on the brakes, and watched as she tried to negotiate the turn into the shopping center I was pulling out of. She looked about 12, cell phone glued to the ear, and driving like an idiot in 3 inches of snow. She missed me by about a foot, but skidded a good 300 to 400 feet pulling double donuts. She regained control and drove back and in, never letting go of the cell phone for a minute. Another rear-ended me at the lights because she was on the cell. Had her license for 2 weeks. Am I missing something here? Or should we not be on phones while driving? My phone is shut off as soon as I get behind the wheel.
-capnlucerne
We thought this was a great question, Capnlucerne, and we to hear what folks have to say. We also thought we'd add this little poll. Tell us what you think! -- The Car Talk Lackeys
I agree with your curiosity about the "study". MADD has been fulminating since the early 80s and got the legal drinking age raised to 21 nationally using trumped up statistics. They show a decline in "alcohol-related" deaths among drivers in the 16-20 year old cohort since the law went into effect in 1984. The term "alcohol related" is guessed at from the type of accident, and more importantly it includes 16 and 17 year olds who have never been able to drink legally in the U.S., and most of all there are no comparisons of the 18-20 group with the 21 year old group. One would THINK that there'd be some kind of spike in deaths overall as the 21-year olds can finally obtain Demon Rum without fear of prosecution, but instead deaths continue to decline as drivers get older.
If I sound like a statistician, you have good ears. And I'm a tee-totaller to boot, so I have no axe to grind, and I drive with nothing on but my clothing and my cell-phone (hands free and voice-activated dialing). Not the radio.
The human brain can only handle so much. Driving is a lot more multi dementional then people like to credit it for. Even if your hands aren't involved the brain is. It's just impossible to carry on an involved conversation while driving. It's not the same as a conversation with a passanger. A passanger can control the conversation because they can see what's going on on the road, they are also a second set of eyes. I don't care what you tell yourself, you just can't be 100% and talk on the phone at the same time. And no conversation is worth killing for.
I strongly believe this is a problem that needs attention, but I also believe that banning phone use is not the answer. It is too late to put that genie back into the bottle. There is an expectation of accessibility that people have that in many cases necessitates we use our phones almost anywhere. I'm not saying I like that, but it is the world we live in now. I do think that there might be certain cases that might warrant a ban. Drivers under 18 for example (of course I would support a ban on that group ever using a cell phone in public). Another option would be on high risk vehicles. On three occasions recently I have encountered school bus drivers talking on their cell phones. One was a lady I called; after a few minutes of conversation she informed me that she was currently on her route. I immediately ended the call. I think for the rest of us, we need an intense learning process to keep calls short and necessary. The vast majority of car cell phone use is people just yackin'. The other part of that would be what was mentioned earlier in this thread: the use of the reckless/careless driving laws. Law enforcement could have a campaign to be watching for this and stopping people. Maybe starting with a period of warnings, moving to a citation to attend some classes or something, finally ending with fines and points on the license. Whatever the answer is, I do not think an all out ban will work, in fact it will probably make it worse as people will be trying to hide the fact that they are talking rather than concentrating on driving.
I have had similar experiences, but would go one step further. Every state should have a law banning DWD - driving while distracted. The law would make DWD a primary driving offense and would cover such things as cell phone use, eating, reading, watching TV, putting on makeup, shaving, writing, using a computer, etc., etc., ad nauseum, while driving.
I'm back after reading many of the responses to this question. It seems there are many who are struggling in the canyons and alleys of personal belief, need, and want. As I suggested before ALL behaviors while behind the wheel need to be controlled with the guiding fact that you are responsible for everything that happens around your car. I cannot begin to rattle off how many drivers I see in a shift not driving attentively. It doesn't matter to me what the distraction is, they are all bad. Cell phones are just a bit of an easier target than DWI, putting on make up, or reading. If I catch you doing these things on my turf I contact the Patrol with your plate number. I do what I can to make my communities a little bit safer for everybody.
So please, ban or not, drive with due regard for the safety of others, remember you are part of our society and obliged to act responsibly, and don't make me have to tell your kids you died because you HAD to order pizza while driving and you took four other people with you.
"It doesn't matter to me what the distraction is, they are all bad."
As an experiment, try driving a straight interstate, during a very low-traffic time, without ANY distractions: no conversations, no phone conversations, no radio, no eating or drinking, etc. I've found this to be very hard to do for an extended period of time.
Considering that effects such as "highway hypnosis" generally happen on the LEAST challenging stretches of roads, isn't it likely that there is an OPTIMUM level of brain activity associated with safest driving, and deviations away from this (in both directions) tend to reduce safety?
For sure hand held should be banned but what is the real differenced between talking to someone in the car and a hands-free conversation? PERHAPS your in car companion will be paying attention to
the road-but no promises there.
There will always be exceptions for emergency personnel so that is a paper tiger
So I'm following this car that is varying speed and using a lane and a half. Sure enough, the driver is on the phone. We come to an intersection, the light is green, the car stops. I'm curious. I don't beep the horn. The light turns red and away she goes.
As a motorcyclist, cell phone users have scared me one to many times. As an X-ray Tech I have seen first hand what horrors that have come from DUI and Driving on the Cell Phone. Get them out of the car!
It looks like I might be in the minority, but I disagree with banning cell phone usage while driving. I think certain people should be banned from using their cell phone while driving.
Seriously, though. I really don't see the difference between using your cell phone, and screaming at your kids, eating, fussing with the radio, etc.
I think this discussion wildly oversimplifies the question. Driving consists of long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of shear terror; all sorts of things can slow the driver's response time in those critical moments. I've never heard of a study that showed that a 35-year-old with a cell phone has a worse reaction time than a 75-year-old without one. I've never seen a study that said that a hands-free cell phone is more distracting than two kids having a fight in the back seat. One of the scariest drives of my life was with a mother who was maneuvering a car at 65 miles an hour while doling out food to three excited, hungry kids in the back seat. Unlike a drunk driver or an elderly driver, a driver on a cell phone can get back to 'normal' in one second if necessary. Cell phones are hugely useful; they can save your life, or get you un-lost, or keep you awake on a boring night-time drive. Plus, a cell phone ban would be utterly unenforcable, far worse in that respect than seatbelt laws. This whole issue strikes me as a fad, based on wild extrapolation from some very limited scientific results.
I believe it's an issue of State's rights, just like all the other traffic laws in this nation. States or municipalities need to make this decision. It's way too much for our congress to be woking on right now. Maybe they should concentrate on health care or fixing our slumped economy.
Exactly! Those of us who are intelligent enough to not talk on the phone in traffic and who know that the other cars are more important than whatever conversation is going on shouldn't be punished for the idiots who can't truly multi-task.
Do you really think attention span and the ability to multitask are functions of intelligence? Then I guess accident statistics should support this argument and smart people never have collisions? I would love to see some factual evidence of this.
Psychological test after test proves that multitasking is a myth, especially for males. Our brains are wired to concentrate on one thing at a time.
While we're at it, let's not forget the folks poking and prodding at their GPS systems who are also risking our lives. What can possibly be legislated that will help people understand that several tons of metal hurtling at speed require all of their attention?
No Ban!!! I do all sorts of distractive things while driving and never have a wreck or run over things or people. Maybe there is something about YOU that causes YOUR problems with other drivers.
It would seem that people in general are in favor of banning cell phone use in motor vehicles while driving period. I would like to point out some flaws in this extreme view. First and formost I see that law enforcement agents spend a lot of time on cell phones while driving. This seens to have supplanted the old 2-way radio as the prefered means of communication. Would this ban extend to them as well, or is it ment for just us civies. Second, how about those of us who rely on a radio dispatcher. How is talking on a 2-way radio different than talking on a cell phone. I can tell you from experience that it is infact more difficult. Third, whats next? No talking to any passengers while driving? No listining to the radio? It's about time that people realize that driving is risky period. The only ways that it can be made truly safe are to either not drive at all, or invent smart cars that can drive themselves and take individual drivers making individual decissions out of the equation.
The mobile phone is a necessary evil for many. For instance, my wife is bedridden, and needs to contact me when I am out. In the car I use hands-free and make no outgoing calls. I answer the phone to tell my wife how long it will take me to get home. Talk time is almost always less than a minute.
02/09/2009 10:52:18 AM
