Ban on Cell Phones While Driving
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-12-15/ban-cell-phones-while-driving
The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that texting, talking or emailing on a cellphone should be banned by all states, except in emergencies. The recommendation includes hands-free devices as well. The only exception is G.P.S. navigation systems. The board made the recommendation after an investigation into a deadly road accident in Missouri involving a 19-year old driver who sent and received 11 text messages in 11 minutes just before the fatal crash. Join us to discuss the implications of this latest effort to curb dangerous driving.
Guests
Russ Rader
vice president of communications, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
David Teater
senior director, Transportation Initiatives, the National Safety Council.
Deborah Hersman
chairman, National Transport Safety Board.
Steven Yantis
chair of psychological and brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
Horace Cooper
adjunct fellow for the National Center for Public Policy Research
Comments
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If someone shoots someone even accidentally, they can be liable for negligent homicide - I do not see the difference if they kill someone with their car.
I was rear-ended by a cell-phone user - she got out of her car still talking on her cell phone and she kept it pressed to her ear throughout our interactions as we exchanged insurance info and she still had it in her ear as she drove away afterwards.
So, I'm all for a ban. I'd go so far as to ban cell phones in cars period, same as for open bottles of liquor. Carry them in the trunk!
I think the comments about public education are very important and listening to the description of the science has really informed my perspective. One thought is for pediatricians to recommend to parents that they ask other parents about whether they talk on the phone while driving before letting their children go somewhere with them. Pediatricians make a variety of recommendations as children reach the age of having play dates with other children and this could be a very important one. In any event, I will now be asking.
So if we ban hands free because talking to someone who is not in the car is dangerous are we also going to ban radios in the car? We do follow conversations we listen on NPR and many times we talk back, right?
Why would they go after cell phones when the NHTSA has found EATING is the biggest accident causer!?
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-07-19/local/17928504_1_drink-and-dr...
That's crazy, the evidence doesn't support the danger of driving while talking on the cell phone relative to the biggest dangers of eating while driving
More fundamental question - why do we treat driving as a "right" and not a privilege? Anyone can get a drivers license, with most having to show only an ability to take a written exam (some with the help of translators!). Knowing the answer to "how many feet of stopping distance is necessary to stop on a rainy surface?" does not illustrate an ability to drive. Other countries require an investment of time and money to actually learn how to be competent and responsible drivers. Taking and owning a sense of responsbility is a trait that is slowly being eroded by technology and excuses (e.g., spell check didn't catch it; my car didn't tell me I was about to get in an accident); one can only imagine the future.
like!
"...More fundamental question - why do we treat driving as a "right" and not a privilege? ..."
Mostly because US infrastructure was designed around our highways and roadways not mass transit like it is in Europe. Treating driving like it's just a privilege in this country would be like sewing on a 3rd arm, it's not a trivial thing
The blind passenger idea has some merit. Talk to some people, such as myself, who have worked in the healthcare field with MRDD residential consumers. Its distracting to have noises, thrown clothing and items, and individuals grabbing you or talking to you when you are driving. Many of the individuals do not understand how their actions are causing safety issues in a vehicle. Maybe you should check accident statistics for healthcare agencies that serve the MRDD population or the residential youth population. You think a cell phone can be distracting? Try driving and having to catch or duck a shoe flying from the back seat before you can even pull the vehicle over to de-escalate the situation.
Did that guy (Horace Cooper?) actually say that people can INSTANTLY switch their attention away from the phone? It must have taken great restraint for the other panelists not to slap the **** out of him. The man who lost his son had, only moments earlier, described that crash as one in which the distracted driver had never touched the brakes.
Even IF you realize you're in a dangerous situation, deciding what to do and then doing it takes seconds - hundreds of feet, depending on your speed.
Everything I feel about this issue having already been expressed by other commentators, my only remaining question is :
HOW WOULD THIS BE REALISTICALLY EVER ENFORCED
when, for example, neither jaywalking pedestrians nor light-running bicyclists are EVER felt with within a City ?
There is powerful evidence.ce that sleep disorders and sleep deprivation account for a siginificant number of lethal transportation related accidents, yet only two states have adopted drowsy driving laws. Sleep debt is equated with alcohol related impairment. While objective confirmation of sleep debt can be challenging it is imparative that this issue also be brought to the forefront particularly among teens who are sleep deprived and essentiallythe largest group of of shift workers in the us.
Everything I feel about this issue having already been expressed by other commentators, my only remaining question is :
HOW WOULD THIS BE REALISTICALLY EVER ENFORCED
when, for example, neither jaywalking pedestrians nor light-running bicyclists are EVER delt with within a City ?
Diane,
Let's adopt the German model for individual responsibility. Let's pass a law that grants relief to insurance companies such that they DO NOT NEED TO COVER (their option) any policy holders who are proven to have caused a motor vehicle accident while distracted with their cell phone use. Insurance rates would go down for all since they won't have to pay out for damages and injuries caused by distracted drivers/policyholders. Phone users would have to ACCEPT ALL RISK for their behavior. If they cause an accident as a result of their choice to use their cell phone, they accept the financial responsibility with that decision. Will make rational people think twice about using their phones, eh?
In Germany, insurance companies do not need to cover medical damages to drivers who cause accidents and who choose NOT to wear their seatbelts. Reasoning is that the driver did not do all he/she could to minimize the injury to themselves. Same logic could apply here with regard to cell phone use. Drivers who use phones CHOOSE to drive distracted and didn't do all they could to eliminate distractions and to drive as safely as possible, so insurance companies should not need to pay for resulting damages.
--Tony Williams
I drive about 35 miles a day and I have to dodge someone texting, inputing a phone number, reading email or msg etc. several times a week. I once had to slam on my brakes while approaching an intersection while a woman sat happily in the middle chatting on her phone. Recently while passing a flat bed truck on a 4 lane 35 mile per hour road in our city, I had to slam on my brakes to avoid being crushed between that truck and a cement truck coming the other way that had veered into my lane while he was looking at his phone. Last month while traveling to another city on the interstate near here I encountered a rolling road block doing about 45 in a 65 zone. When I finally got to the front of the blockage, it was being caused by a man in the fast lane watching a video on his phone, totally oblivious to the traffic around him. My daughter just got her permit to start driving and I know that she does not have the experience or the skills at this point to be able to avoid some of these clowns I contend with on a daily basis. IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! How can anyone claim that their need to conduct their business, read email or check in with their loved ones trumps my need to keep my loved ones safe from their erratic and dangerous driving? This is not an issue of "rights" or "freedoms" being stepped on. Show me where in our Constitution these supposed rights exist. This is plain stupidity. You cause the death of someone by using your cell phone while driving, you forfeit your life to live free for the rest of yours!
Brian: Yes, he said it with such conviction too, like he really believed it was insightful rather than terribly off. I don't think Horace Cooper did his side any favors today. Any of the anti-ban commentators on this thread would have done a better job.
WE HAVE ENOUGH LAWS ON THE BOOKS, enforce them. Why must people these people working on the government dime try desperately to take more freedom from us. Don't justify your position researching ways to steal freedom from the american people, maybe you could go get a job doing something that society finds valuable enough that the private sector will actually provide.
Horace Cooper lacks credibility to say the least. He was convicted in the Jack Abramoff scandal and only escaped serious jail time by pleading out. He has a history of shilling for which ever interest group pays the bill. It seems he's continues to do so. Letting him represent himself as a disinterested party from the innocuous sounding National Center for Public Policy Research (of which Abramoff is a former board member) is a disservice to the listeners, Diane. Please vet your commentators more thoroughly and give full disclosure of the motivation and funding of those commentators.
I have had to use my cell while driving to get police to stop a drunk driver. In Oklahoma if you lose visual contact with a suspect no law enforcement will show up. What about people who pass a fire or person who may be stopped needing help or an accident? Should they be banned calling for help? I live in rual Oklahoma. Should cell phones be banned I would be home from the store that's 30 minuets away befor I find out we needed sugar instead of the parking lot of the store. Oklahoma already has laws restricting distracted driving. Most of the cops I see Are on a cellphone!
There is none in most states.
Couldn't agree more. Driving is a privilege, not a right. License holders relinquish their rights when they accept their driver's licenses and they agree to comply with the laws. In Europe and Canada, driver training is taken VERY seriously. It's expensive, time consuming, and rigorous. Consists of much classroom education and field experience operating under supervision on the road. Very similar to college courses, for a semester or two. Not all pass the first time. And it's done for trainees at an older age. You must be 18 or older to legally operate there, not 16 (or less with justification). In the US, we practically give out driver licenses in boxes of Cracker Jacks at 16 and never need to worry again. No proficiency demonstrated and refresher training needed for the rest of your life.
Geez, I hope you don't drive in Dallas, Tx., because if the "lifestyle" you maintain are that critical to your life, it's time to really rethink your life and decide if becoming injured or dying is worth it!
Tom there is no deference in most states
We're talking about this at the 75,000 member iRV2 forum of RV owners.
When it comes to highway operations, the public has little common sense and a breathtaking sense of entitlement. As an airline pilot, I don't launch into hysteria anytime a rule that promotes a higher level of safety is proposed; why should any driver be treated differently? After all, he/she and I are both entrusted with the lives of others, we both operate dangerous machinery in a PUBLIC domain. This whole business of individual liberty on public roads reflects an inherent belief in the inferiority and insigficance of the individual operator; we have to evolve beyond that stance. A licensed driver shoulders the burden of an immense responsibility, not unlike my own. Operating a car doesn't mean you are of little or no signficance to the traveling public, as these dreadful statistics so clearly demonstrate.
A recent study doesn't even include talking on a cell phone! I'd like to see the NTSB stats.
1. Distracted Drivers
Mark Edwards, Director of Traffic Safety at the American Automobile Association stated, "The research tells us that somewhere between 25-50 percent of all motor vehicle crashes in this country really have driver distraction as their root cause."
The distractions are many, but according to a study conducted by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), texting -- rubbernecking -- or slowing down to gawk at another accident -- caused the most accidents, accounting for 16 percent of all distraction-related crashes.
"I've had as many as three accidents at one scene, at one intersection," says Officer John Carney of the Fairfax County Police. "Rubbernecking is the most dangerous distraction, in my experience."
After rubbernecking, other common driver distractions included:
Driver fatigue (12 percent, see below)
Looking at scenery (10 percent)
Other passengers or children (9 percent)
Adjusting the radio, cassette or CD player (7 percent)
Reading the newspaper, books, maps or other documents (less than 2 percent)
Another increasingly serious cause of driver distraction is cell phone use, as more than 85 percent of the estimated 100 million cell-phone users talk on their phone regularly while driving, according to a Prevention magazine survey. At least one study has found that driving and talking on a cell phone at the same time quadruples the risk of crashing, which is why many cities have recently begun banning their use while driving unless a hands-free device is used.
From:
http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/07/20/the_6_most_common_causes_of_...
This is the last "what about the radio" comment that I found and it is worth replying to this argument. The speakers noted studying response times with various distractions including the radio and did not state radio as being particularly problematic.
I don't find that particularly surprising. The difference between radio and a conversation is that you don't realistically expect to have a conversation with your radio station (unless you are phoning in a comment or a question to a talk show in which case PULL OVER FIRST). Sure, you may audibly comment or respond or react to it, but it is not by any stretch a dialogue (note the prefix "di").
Do I have the radio on when driving, yes, but I avoid channel surfing, and start off with stuff that does not require my attention so to speak. Do I listen to NPR, yes, but if I miss a thing here or there because I need to focus on traffic, that's just fine. I purposely avoid classical stations because I did find myself paying more attention to the music and the mood than the road.
As far as passengers (of all ages) conversations are a distraction and as a driver I have often requested "no talking to the driver" of my passengers. I have also been told of things on the road such as stop signs, pedestrians, bicycles, red lights, etc., by my passengers that I may or may not have noticed. Get a cell phone party to do that.
Grocho I've driven in Dallas and it takes all my attention to drive there!
England has got it right. It will be hard to legislate one type of distraction, unless it is obvious.
Cb radios have been in use all of my life and this has never been an issue.
I think several decades of psychophysics studies on the limits of visual and auditory attention make it pretty clear that operating and talking on a cellphone is distracting. We are late. Almost the entire world has already outlawed it. Law or not, when I am about to cross the road on foot, if I see a driver on the phone (my guess is 1 in 5 during rush hour), I wait.