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No. In the REAL WORLD data obtained from surveys is how engineers and politicians make decisions. Only engineers and politicians live in a world where survey data is more valuable than actual real life experiences. That's the problem with engineers, they don't understand the real world. As for the last 8 years, come back to this forum (if the messiah still allows the free exchange of information 8 years from now) and let me know how you feel about the Bush presidency. If Obama keeps spending like a drunken sailor on idiotic social programs, we'll probably only have to wait 4 years.
And until last year, vehicle miles traveled increased, the number of vehicles on the road increased, the number of immegrant drivers increased, etc. And so far, very little has been done to help a car AVOID a crash, just mitigate them.
So, you don't think anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, smart cruise control, blind spot monitoring systems, improvements in tire technology and a myriad of other safety enhancements might help you AVOID a crash?
Even that isn't exactly correct. If you look at skills and training, things like hand eye coordination, opportunity cost of task switching, etc that doesn't seem to be the case. Aging hurts the process, but driving skills compensate to a degree.
An aging population alone offsets any advancements in skill and training.
So why don't we do something about the poor performing drivers? What does that have to do with cell phones?
We should do something about all poor performing drivers, but this forum specifically relates to cell phone users. As I said earlier, all these idiots applying makeup, reading, polishing nails, etc. should have their licenses yanked.
Now the trucking division of a Boise company, whose truckers have had two much more minor cell phone-related accidents, is banning cell phone use by its 250 drivers.
"Last year we had 1.46 accidents per million miles driven, the third lowest in our history," said Craig Lockwood, BCT safety manager for trucking operations. "But we also know that one of the first things attorneys who represent victims of trucking accidents do is ask for the driver's cell phone records."
Hanging up on Idaho truckers' cell phones (Idaho Statesman).
Texting driver crashes into Boise police car (Idaho Statesman)
The horrific NUMEROUS accidents and incidents that have occurred with the tag "cell phone use/texting may have been a contributing factor" never make national news.
On a local level - it's a gory bloodbath, cars are common so we perceive the sorrowful situation of dead teenagers on a state road is "isolated". Within five miles of my address there have been at least three accidents with varying levels of fatalities that NEVER make the news past the local level. A girl slammed into a small bridge abutment at the end of my road and was killed - that made the local paper as a matter of course but didn't even make the local tv news..... cell phone use was a factor. The others hold varying degrees of dismemberment and mayhem but who cares? Why should somebody that lives in Sacramento pay any mind to dead teenagers in Upstate NY? Other than an obligatory comment "That's so sad about them", life goes on.... Right to the point of impact.
When this three-ring-circus of driver distraction finally starts surpassing the drunk driving numbers will it finally get attention? Probably not.
One of my favorite all time movies, "Defending Your Life" has the hapless character portrayed by Albert Brooks proudly driving his brand new BMW and fiddling with its radio knobs, distracted - he slams right into the back of a bus and is propelled into the afterlife. A delightful light comedy.... perhaps not so funny anymore.
Survey: 26 percent admit to texting while driving (CNET)
Ashey said he was plugging it into his charger, when he drove his hummer off the road."
Hummer plunges down embankment, driver okay (KTVB)
According to KTVB article, Ashey also said that cell phones in cars should be banned. Guess it takes a crash to get religion.
Thankfully, Ashey simply ran off the road and is ok. But, what if instead of going off road he would have head-on an Aveo, or Mini. Maybe he is reflecting on that now. That would have been manslaughter..
Thoughts from the Curb: Where Can I Text While Driving? (Edmunds Daily)
"Cell phone use should be limited to passengers in motor vehicles. A driver who needs to make or accept a call should simply stop at the first opportunity and chat for as long as he or she wishes. Cell phone use accounts for some of the most flagrant bad driving on our roads today."
Would be nice if prominent people in our nation would make similar statements in public. Perhaps baseball, football and basketball players. Also, entertainers. The public sheep believe these types of people. Just think if Michael Jackson had come out some years ago and made public statements on the dangers of drivers using cell phones.
U.S. withheld data on risks of distracted driving (NY Times via MSNBC)
Seems like time is way overdue to get legislation and technology together to design vehicles and/or cell devices to be inoperable while vehicle is moving. In a "real" emergency, such as witnessing a traffic accident, one can always find a safe spot to pull over, stop and call 911.
Except for younger drivers today, those of us a little older Somehow managed our affairs and business without having cell phones to use in our moving vehicles. Just how did we ever get through those difficult times. No cell phones. The hardships we endured. Had to look for pay phone whether for mundane calls or real emergencies.
NY Times article mentioned an OKLA politician talking continuously while driving from office to home. This and similar "stupid" and "dangerous" practice needs to stop. A moving vehicle is not the place to conduct business, do idle chatter, etc.
An alternative to laws or technolgy cutting off cell phones in moving vehicles is too bill cost per minute at say $2-$5. 911 calls would be exempted. Cell towers that handle cell calls already "know" if cell device is moving. The towers need to know this in order to be able to "pass" the call to the next geographic tower that is in the direction of the cell phone movement. What is needed is legislation requiring high per minute rate when cell phone is moving and cell providers to get hardware/software developed and implemented to enable high rate. This would be good revenue for providers and stimulus to equipment/software manufacturers and would be incentive for drivers to NOT use cell phone while driving.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,535021,00.html?test=latestnews
Article also said that Steven Yantis, Prof of psychological and brain sciences at John Hopkins said: When a cell phone driver is listening to cell conversation, they are slower to respond to things they are looking at. It requires the driver to select one thing at the cost of being less able to respond to other things.
Article also said the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) recently uncovered a buried NHTSA Study in 2003 that identified cell phone use by drivers as serious safety hazard. CAS is filing a petition that would require all new vehicles to only allow cell calls with the transmission in Park mode. Emergency calls would be allowed while moving.
Mr Ditlow, executive director of CAS, said his org's goal is to make cell phone talking and driving as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving.
Wow after the New York Times gets blasted so badly for misrepresenting data that they have to drop the series, Time comes out with an article...I see why newspapers and news weeklys are getting replaced by online media.
Article says that Prof Strayer at Univ of Utah conducted tests and found that DUI drivers at .08 level had better reaction time than a sober driver on a cell phone.
That is very interesting because in a Driver Distraction Study presented to an HFES panel today by Joel Cooper (Strayer's grad student), he found that cell phone drivers have a shorter reaction time than those in the just drive task.
Additionally, in Strayer's studies, the phone conversation centers around a religious, political, moral, or philosophical point engineered to set up an emotional response.
Article also said that Steven Yantis, Prof of psychological and brain sciences at John Hopkins said: When a cell phone driver is listening to cell conversation, they are slower to respond to things they are looking at. It requires the driver to select one thing at the cost of being less able to respond to other things.
Yup, I totally agree. For all the unified cognitive models that exist, there is always a black box in there that implies single order processing. What, exactly, is the cost of that switching time? Is it significant? Can you walk and chew gum? Pat your head and rub your tummy?
Article also said the Center for Auto Safety (CAS) recently uncovered a buried NHTSA Study in 2003 that identified cell phone use by drivers as serious safety hazard. CAS is filing a petition that would require all new vehicles to only allow cell calls with the transmission in Park mode. Emergency calls would be allowed while moving.
Mr Ditlow, executive director of CAS, said his org's goal is to make cell phone talking and driving as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving.
Yup good luck with that.
So quick recap:
Cell phone use in last 10 years increases by >900%
Number of highway fatalities continues to be at record or near record lows
Crashes continue to be at record or near record lows
Actual on road data from 100 car naturalistic driving study:
* Dialing a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 2.8 times as high as non-distracted driving;
* Talking or listening to a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.3 times as high as non-distracted driving; and
* Reaching for an object such as an electronic device made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.4 times as high as non-distracted driving.
So in real life driving, talking on or listening to a cell phone increased the risk factor by 1.3, which may or may not be a statistically significant difference over not using the phone at all. It is less risky than reaching for an iPod or box of cigarettes.
Now back to our usual banter of people creating epidemics where they don't exist.
I work near an airport with it's attendant rental car terminals and tourist traffic - people that in general seem to have no idea where they are going. Almost weekly, there's a near miss or pileup as someone exiting the area being is coached on the cell as to where they have to go. They find out they are in the wrong lane (usually it's the left most one), and either 1) yanks the wheel and cuts across 3 lanes of 60 mph traffic, or 2) comes to a near standstill in the left hand lane waiting until they can "safely" make the aforementioned move.
Just yesterday on the way home I come across some low life :mad: in the left hand lane doing ~50 mph. This is on a 60 mph road. Yep, you guessed it (or maybe you didn't ) - yakking away on the cell, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around him.
These kinds of situation I don't think were modeled or measured by those studies.
* Talking or listening to a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.3 times as high as non-distracted driving; and
* Reaching for an object such as an electronic device made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.4 times as high as non-distracted driving.
I hope you didn't waste too much money on that engineering degree because any dishwasher or busboy could tell you that that 2.8 times the risk is significant. If you think a 30% increase in risk doesn't amount to much, consider how you'd feel about getting a 30% raise in salary. Better yet, think about how you'd feel about a 30% pay cut--would that be significant? By the way, the last I heard, a cell phone is an electronic device. In fact, it's probably the one most drivers are reaching for while they're crashing...
One of the things I got out of that engineering degree was critical reading skills, something that apparently is lacking for most Americans. Let's review:
Dialing a cell phone made the risk of crash or near-crash event 2.8 times as high as non-distracted driving;
So if you are dialing a cell phone, where are your hands...hmm thats right, on the cell phone. That would imply that its not "hands free," since your hands are on the phone. Interesting how that works out. Now I am not talking about those lame things that go in your ear, I am talking about an integrated hands free solution.
If you think a 30% increase in risk doesn't amount to much, consider how you'd feel about getting a 30% raise in salary. Better yet, think about how you'd feel about a 30% pay cut--would that be significant?
Since apparently your career as a dishwasher or busboy didn't include a class in basic statistics. So the way this works is you measure a hypothesis (cell phones are the devil, cause crashes, etc against chance, or the null hypothesis). Then you determine if the difference between the hypothesis and the null can be explained by correlation or chance. For 1.3x, that might be one or the other.
Reaching for an object such as an electronic device made the risk of crash or near-crash event 1.4 times as high as non-distracted driving.
By the way, the last I heard, a cell phone is an electronic device. In fact, it's probably the one most drivers are reaching for while they're crashing...
So again, lets revisit those critical reading skills. It says "reaching for an object," which would typically include, well, objects. Looking in my coworker's car, that could include CDs, tapes, an iPod, cigarettes, cell phone, water bottle, cap for said water bottle, Pepsi can, etc.
Actually, it depends who's study you are reviewing. Utah uses highly controversial conversation topics such as politics, religion, and abortion so they can bring in an emotional component to the conversation. Virginia Tech didn't introduce anything, they were basically voyeurs watching what people normally do (hence the "naturalistic" driving study). Utah uses a simulator lab, VT usually does on-road studies. I am not dissing the simulated driving, its just a different environment and is mostly comparable as an index to other simulator based studies.
In some studies, they introduce motivation one way or the other (we will give you an extra $5 if you don't leave your lane without signaling, or it might be something like if you always answer the phone by the second ring...which might not be necessary since most are conditioned to do that already).
I work near an airport with it's attendant rental car terminals and tourist traffic - people that in general seem to have no idea where they are going. Almost weekly, there's a near miss or pileup as someone exiting the area being is coached on the cell as to where they have to go. They find out they are in the wrong lane (usually it's the left most one), and either 1) yanks the wheel and cuts across 3 lanes of 60 mph traffic, or 2) comes to a near standstill in the left hand lane waiting until they can "safely" make the aforementioned move.
So this gets into that hypothesis thing again...your implied hypothesis is that people are driving poorly because they are distracted by on a cell phone. Some alternative hypothesis might include: people are distracted because they are in an unfamiliar vehicle, people are distracted because they are programming a portable navigation system, people are distracted because they are in an unfamiliar location, people are distracted because they are reading a paper map, or that some people just aren't very good drivers.
Just yesterday on the way home I come across some low life in the left hand lane doing ~50 mph. This is on a 60 mph road. Yep, you guessed it (or maybe you didn't ) - yakking away on the cell, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around him.
So do we know how this guy drives when he isn't on the phone? Could he just be one of the Prius drivers trying to save gas? Could he just not know what the speed limit was? Could he have been driving slower to give more of a gap because someone was tailgating him?
Yep!
Some alternative hypothesis might include: people are distracted because they are in an unfamiliar vehicle, people are distracted because they are programming a portable navigation system, people are distracted because they are in an unfamiliar location, people are distracted because they are reading a paper map, or that some people just aren't very good drivers.
Good points. My observations were, obviously, anecdotal to some extent. However, I have been working at the same place for over 40 years. You can do the math and figure out that most of my driving, along the same road (that leads to the airport), predated the cell phone. So I have to some extent, a before and after cell phone comparison to base my observations on. And yes, the problem is worse now than it was 5, 10, or 15 years ago. Maps haven't changed. The percentage of drivers in unfamiliar cars probably hasn't changed. More people are just bad drivers? Maybe.
But what definitely has changed in that time period is the use of cell phones by drivers.
So if you are dialing a cell phone, where are your hands...hmm thats right, on the cell phone. That would imply that its not "hands free," since your hands are on the phone.
I missed the point where "hands free" became the focus of the argument. The discussion here is about talking on a cell phone. It doesn't say anything about where one's hands are in the process. Are hands-free, voice-activated systems safer than manually-dialed, hold-it-to-your-ear systems? Of course, but talking on the best hands-free system is still more dangerous than actually paying attention to driving while driving (about 1.3 times as dangerous according to the study you cited). Assuming the people doing the study understood statistic methods at least as well as you do, 30% is a huge differential.
That sounds like a longitudinal study...that is a bit different then anecdotal...
You can do the math and figure out that most of my driving, along the same road (that leads to the airport), predated the cell phone. So I have to some extent, a before and after cell phone comparison to base my observations on.
Yeah that doesn't seem so anecdotal if data supports it.
And yes, the problem is worse now than it was 5, 10, or 15 years ago. Maps haven't changed. The percentage of drivers in unfamiliar cars probably hasn't changed.
I think if you really wanted to be anal, you could look at what type of travelers are coming and if it changes over time...is it tourism, is it business, is it more international than it was in the past (although typically, Europeans are better drivers than Americans).
But what definitely has changed in that time period is the use of cell phones by drivers.
Portable navigation systems also went from being $500-600 to More people are just bad drivers? Maybe.
I don't necessarily think of them as bad drivers, just inconsiderate/unenlightened drivers.
Nah, it got me into graduate school, and that got me the job I wanted. I have no bone to pick with them. I feel (undergraduate) was my parent's money well spent :P and graduate school was an indentured servitude arrangement where I researched driver distraction topics.
Did they teach you the meaning of words like "specious" and "tenuous" in engineering school?
No, I learned those in AP English in HS so I could do well on my SATs to get into college in the first place. Others can get funding to develop a weak argument that lacks any type of face validity. Correlations are easy. You can show a correlation between pineapple juice and cancer, but causation, that is somewhat more challenging.
The discussion here is about talking on a cell phone. It doesn't say anything about where one's hands are in the process. Are hands-free, voice-activated systems safer than manually-dialed, hold-it-to-your-ear systems?
There are 3 parts to a phone call: 1. initiation (dialing, or accepting a call depending on the situation), 2. the conversation, and 3. terminating the call. The hands free part basically affects the beginning and the end, and it depends on if the car was initiated by the driver or accepted/rejected by the driver. The conversation is still being studied, because Utah used emotionally charged topics and Univ of Illinois didn't.
Assuming the people doing the study understood statistic methods at least as well as you do, 30% is a huge differential.
How much is tuning the radio? Changing the CD (a two handed operation in most cases)? Programming a portable nav system?
As said by Katherine Mangu-Ward, a senior editor at Reason magazine:
In 1995, 13 percent of the U.S. population owned a cellphone. Today, cellphone ownership rates are well over 80 percent. In those 14 years, the annual number of motor vehicle deaths has remained eerily constant, hovering around 40,000.
With more vehicles on the road and more miles traveled per vehicle, rates about the same or dropping slightly.
I feel like we have anecdotal evidence from one group. Another group does studies that don't represent the actual driving task or the actual secondary task (from both sides, either the driving is too easy with too little traffic or the driving is too challenging to where most people wouldn't talk anyway, or the task is a surrogate to just push a button instead of talking on the phone, or the conversation is about something ridiculous that is too demanding, like if I were driving and having this conversation...). A third group goes straight for headlines - worse than drunk driving etc. That just means you have no statistics. All these studies use surrogate measures (lane departures, reaction times, etc, since you can't have crashes in the simulators, and I think the IRB would be pissed if you had them in real driving).
I personally am a big fan of secondary enforcement. If a driver can make responsible decisions about when and when not to use a phone, let them be, but if a driver seems like they have trouble with that decision (and my guess is their driving record shows a history of some bad decision making), then cook them.
With drivers involved in electronic device usage, they avoid accidents due to other drivers paying attention to the road being able to avoid them. Unless of course one is texting and misses the train in front of you, or runs down pedestrians in a cross walk etc.
While one could make a case and cite relevant case studies that may show a relationship between ear scratching and accidents, there is simply no common sense way that a thinking person would believe cell phone usage is a harmless vehicular activity. With the exception of driving with a postive BAC, which the government says is ok to some degree, cell phone using drivers are a menace to the people around them. And most manage not to kill themselves due to other drivers paying attention.
Pressure Mounts for Nationwide Ban on Texting While Driving (AutoObserver)
Good idea...totally unenforceable, but good idea!
Perhaps they should ban visual/manual intensive tasks over a certain duration. That's why you can't enter a destination into most factory navigation systems - the "15-second rule" says if a task takes more than 15 seconds of eyes off road time total (not one glance, but a series of glances up to 15 seconds) it should be locked out while driving. There are a few other studies that are more recent and some surrogate measures that all basically say the same thing.
Governor Cuomo did something interesting in NY to drive home the seriousness of the seat belt law when it first went into effect...The first person stopped and ticketed was one of his daughters. Naturally, it made all the news shows that night and got the buzz going about the new law. Perhaps if every state just summarily executed the first person caught texting while driving the law might get some attention.
Governor Cuomo did something interesting in NY to drive home the seriousness of the seat belt law when it first went into effect...The first person stopped and ticketed was one of his daughters. Naturally, it made all the news shows that night and got the buzz going about the new law. Perhaps if every state just summarily executed the first person caught texting while driving the law might get some attention.
+1 :shades: .
The thing about tuning a radio is that the driver can select the instant when he/she will do the task - if they are intelligent and alert drivers. If you are having a conversation on a cell while driving, your main concentration is listening, absorbing content and constructing your next reply and then delivering a reply. This is vastly different from changing a radio station which only requires momentary simple thought process and can be done safely when road is straight, no intersections nearby, no opposing traffic. The distraction of a cell phone call is a continuous thought process rather than a brief instant to change a radio station.
I was one who years ago drove and used the cell phone. As I have mentioned in previous posts, when I did this, and upon call termination, I thought and recounted and usually could not remember any traffic details during the call. I would often think, "Oh, I have gone this far?".
Today, if I am on a rural 55 posted highway, with semi traffic to boot, that has curves, dips, crests, crossroads, sideroads, I am very careful to change a radio station. Only do it on a straight, with no oncoming traffic, no semi on my rear.
I've heard a couple more tech types on the radio in the last month say it's feasible to kill cell phone transmissions in moving vehicles. Seems a bit punitive for passengers and the commuter crowd.
I'm not sure I would use the term punitive. After all, we got along fine without phones in the car for, oh, maybe 80 or 90 years
Is this per the FCC or ?
You can always make stuff illegal one way or another. :shades:
Here in Maryland, the governor has been trying to get permission to try out cell phone jamming gear in some prisons. This came about because some "hits" were ordered by people incarcerated using smuggled in cell phones. I do not know if the feds approved his request or not.
Cheers!
Paul
This week there was a summit of sorts in Washington DC to get a clearer picture of what contributes to distracted driving. The proceedings were colorful with the zealots on both sides, but aside from that, there was an earnest effort from all parties (cell phone industry, vehicle manufacturers. safety organizations, research institutes, and just about everyone else) to actually work on problem solving.
What I see coming out of this is a ban on hand held phone use for texting or dialing, upholding the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers' Guidelines for in-vehicle devices (why you can't program a destination in a built in navigation system...and why its unlikely you will be able to with a hand-held in the future), and a push for more things like SYNC and U-connect - integrated on-board in-vehicle solutions that let you dial using voice.
It was a great opportunity to see what industry and research leaders had to offer in developing solutions.
While there was a focus on telematics and infotainment, there is also the challenge of "old world" distractions in vehicles like eating, child care, navigation and personal grooming. This implies that cell phone users were in fact singled out, but I think the outcome of the summit will be largely positive for all road users.
But, the preponderance of observed distraction types is cell phone use evident by driver holding device to ear. Given the amount of use of "hands-free" devices, one cannot observe these type distractions, EXCEPT when loony driving maneuvers cause one to suspect a driver is using hands-free.
MSNBC had clip from DC summit showing U of Utah Professor who said numerous testing they have done shows cell phone users, hand held or hands free, are twice as risky/dangerous on road than legally drunk .08 drivers.
Laws needed to ban all kinds of driver cell phone use. Mika Brezinski, host on MSNBC, opined that is inevitable. That would be a good thing just as an open beer can is illegal inside a car even though a driver could consume one beer and be well under .08 DUI threshhold.
In your sample of 1, yes, but in aggregate, with statistical signifcance and validity, not so much. That's not saying its not an issue, just saying that its not the biggest issue.
Given the amount of use of "hands-free" devices, one cannot observe these type distractions, EXCEPT when loony driving maneuvers cause one to suspect a driver is using hands-free.
A couple of tihngs:
1. Virginia Tech did just that. They found a non-statistically significant difference over "just driving."
2. Having the answer and talyoring the data and making assumptions to support that isn't a valid scientific method, for you or Strayer (the U of Utah Prof).
MSNBC had clip from DC summit showing U of Utah Professor who said numerous testing they have done shows cell phone users, hand held or hands free, are twice as risky/dangerous on road than legally drunk .08 drivers.
So apparently we also lose critical reading skills when the outcome supports a finding we like. Even the researchers who say that realize when they are in error.
The study that started it all (New England Journal of Medicine):
Association between Cellular-Telephone Calls and Motor Vehicle Collisions
The follow up by the original authors and researchers further explaining what they really meantCar phones and car crashes: some popular misconceptions
There is no basis with any face validity to relate drunk driving and cell phones usage. Its just not a relevant comparison. The cumulative risk from drunk driving (as mentioned by the folks above) is much greater than that of any invehicle device (although text messaging wasn't around when that comment was made).
There is also nothing that links driving behavior in simulators to real world driving...there are correlations. Driving simulators collect driving performance measures like standard deviation of lane position, speed maintenance, and occasionally eye glance behavior. Response time to a stimulus is also a common one (push the horn when you see a car on the shoulder, or a dog on the shoulder, or something like that). It doesn't specifically measure "crashes" becuase it can't. Most researchers use "fuzzy numbers" to say a certian drivng performance = certain death, etc
So just to recap:
Market saturation of cell phones up almost 1000% in last decade
Crash rate (police reported crashes) continues to fall to record lows
Data from 100 car nauturalistic driving study (real people driving their own cars using their own phones living their own lives, but with a voyuer) by Virginia Tech showed no statistically significant difference between just driving and driving with a hands free phone.
This is normal people having a normal conversation, not young and inexperienced drivers with no established scanning behavior sending text messages using a visual/manual interface that contributes to excessive eyes off road time.
In the second reference you provided, the authors are saying that the increased risk of accidents from cell phone-caused distraction is greater than what they stated in the original article – that the original article’s conclusions were biased towards a more conservative (less risk) outcome .
Here are some excerpts:
In our research, we found that drivers were 4 times more likely to have a collision when using a cellular telephone than when not using a cellular telephone. What we wish we had explained more clearly in our article, however, was that this increase was not calculated in comparison to the risk of collision under ideal circumstances of no distractions. Actually, the increase was relative to the risk of collision when the driver drove with his or her usual background distractions. Making calls on a cellular telephone is distinctly more risky than listening to the radio, talking to passengers and other activities commonly occurring in vehicles.
The records of telephone use were not accurate to the second and our measures of driving patterns were also inexact; together, such imprecision biased the risk estimate toward finding nothing.
Our cohort also included a few drivers who did not call while driving, and this made the entire group seem a bit protected from collisions
Our study evaluated drivers who owned a cellular telephone, had been in a motor vehicle collision and consented to have us review their detailed cellular telephone billing records. We analyzed no records without signed informed consent. As a consequence, people who were reluctant to participate because of concerns about personal liability were excluded from the analysis. These exclusions can cause our analysis to underestimate by an order of magnitude the risk associated with using a cellular telephone while driving.
1. They only studied people who crashed, which is already a very small subset, and of those, only those who would provide phone records
2. The study compared phone records, not calls or content, not weather, not driving conditions, not traffic conditions
3. They compared the people who crashed on a given day to the day before (which presumably, they did not crash
4. They may or may not have been on the phone during that time period the day before
5. They may or may not have been driving during that time period the day before
In our research, we found that drivers were 4 times more likely to have a collision when using a cellular telephone than when not using a cellular telephone. What we wish we had explained more clearly in our article, however, was that this increase was not calculated in comparison to the risk of collision under ideal circumstances of no distractions. Actually, the increase was relative to the risk of collision when the driver drove with his or her usual background distractions. Making calls on a cellular telephone is distinctly more risky than listening to the radio, talking to passengers and other activities commonly occurring in vehicles
Based on their methodology, I don't quite get how they can make that statement. They are comparing actions on one day to actions on another day. They have no idea if someone is any more or less likely to have adjusted the radio or had a passenger on one day vs another.
That said, there is no "ideal driving circumstances with no distraction." In driving studies, (such as the Virgina Tech study) the "just drive" risk wasn't statistically different than the "hands free call."
5. They may or may not have been driving during that time period the day before
From the original NEJM article, it stated that:
Methods We studied 699 drivers who had cellular telephones and who were involved in motor vehicle collisions resulting in substantial property damage but no personal injury. Each person's cellular-telephone calls on the day of the collision and during the previous week were analyzed through the use of detailed billing records.
From that, I would conclude that the study did include for the fact that they may or may not have been on the cell phone the day before the crash, and that they were driving.
In all seriousness, I'm glad Arnie is going to have talk with her.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oT03a3YvYFO_2b9MnD2uOZ6Q_3d_3d
If one closes their eyes like Dorothy and imagines lunch eating, eyebrow plucking shaving drivers are in the majority over cell phone texters and cell phone holders then it will be so.
Two many high profile crashes auto and non-auto attributed to cell phone usage to ignore the obvious. If you are using an electronic device and driving like a drunk and get caught, hit the wallet. Should they be singled out...my answer is still the same.