Today, as you know, is July 1st. To celebrate, California and Washington State have passed laws mandating handsfree devices; stick a phone to your ear and get a fine. Not just a fine of course. You have to (at least in CA) pay a gas surcharge fee, as well. These laws won't do a damn thing to increase safety; the supposed reason why they were passed. Here's my thinking… When you want to call someone, you still have to dial. Sure, lots of phones have voice recognition. With my supposed "smart phone" I say, "Call mom mobile" and get back, "Calling Tom Vogel." But here's the real cincher. This morning, for the first time, I used a handsfree device. I loved it. Normally when I'm driving I try to get off the phone as quickly as possible. I need a hand to shift gears and my arm gets tired. But with the ear dongle, I talked for half an hour– way longer than I normally would if I were holding a phone to my ear. So, does my State feel that the physical act of holding my hand to my ear is the danger? Because methinks these new laws will have more people driving and talking longer. Your thoughts?
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While I’m sure that the benefits of forcing handsfree usage would be far less than banning talking while driving completely, It really can only help.
And that’s research be damned. I don’t care what it says…you can’t tell me that people will be just as able to complete a driving course while holding a phone and talking as opposed to talking with both hands on the wheel.
Which leads me to the moron of the day award for yesterday…From a Reuters article talking about a hands-free cell phone law in Cali…
“On the one hand I don’t want people crashing into each other, but I’m not going to go get an ear thing,” 38-year-old bank employee Jason Fischer said in Los Angeles. “I’ll give it up and then one day I’ll make a call and get a ticket. I don’t want a headset. I’m too lazy to get a headset.”
Congrats, douche, you just admitted to the entire country that you’re not only lazy, but stupid as well.
Jonny, Jonny, Jonny, we’ve debated this subject to death already!
Research shows that it is the act of having a conversation, more than the physical act of holding the phone, that is the problem. So no, this won’t do a damn thing to improve safety.
You’re right, Jonny. My car has blutooth and I yak away MORE than I ever did. I hated to drive and hold the damn phone. But our California, bless her heart, can’t agree on a budget, healthcare, education or how to not have prison guard unions running the state, but wait….she got rid of those damn phones!
I don’t think this law will do much in the way of keeping drivers from getting distracted. There are plenty of other distractions like messing with the radio or iPod, navigation system, girls in mini-skirts walking on the sidewalk, accidents (read: rubbernecking) and as far as I know, you’re still able to TEXT MESSAGE while driving. Outlawing cellphone use sans hands-free device only seems to be scratching the surface here.
But (get this) texting is still legal.
Ban all cell phone usage while driving. And while we’re at it also add a pre-emptive ban on driver internet use, watching videos, reading the paper, shaving or fiddlng with a GPS.
Driving is the most dangerous thing the majority of people will do on any given day so its worth paying attention.
This is news? This has been the law in NY for a number of years already! If is also quite effective in that you do find far less folks holding phones to their ears in NY. In all honesty the bluetooth headset has become a fashion statement in NY.
IF you are not familiar with NYC you would be shocked to see the number of non-drivers walking around the city with cellualr headsets on. The only folks still holding phone are those people with older non-bluetooth models like me!
Oh, and I do use my obsolete wired headset in the car!
I live in CA and while I don’t think that this law will discourage phone use, at least people with hands-free kits will be able to move their head to see traffic. I don’t know how many times someone has changed lanes to the left and cut me off because they had a phone on their left ear and are unable to turn their head to see me, lest they miss a moment of their all-important conversation. It’s worth the law just for that.
This will do absolutely nothing. I don’t know any place it is actually enforced. We have had this law in Chicago for quite some time and I have never seen, heard of or read about someone getting ticketed for holding a phone while driving.
I used to talk on the phone, eat or listen to the radio, and now I do none of the above.
I couldn’t forgive myself if I hit or killed someone because I wasn’t giving 110% of my attention to the road. I became ALOT more aware of this after I took my MSF course to get my Class M.
Oh yeah, and about conversations in the car….I am hearing impaired & can’t make out my wife’s words over road noise, so she usually just sleeps when we are going somewhere and I’m driving.
It annoys my wife to no end, as I won’t pick up the phone if I’m driving and she is calling me.
IMHO cars shouldn’t have radios, ipod hookups, GPS’s that function while moving or other distractions. If I need to call someone while driving, I either find a place to park or I hand the phone to my wife “Call JR and tell him we are running late.”
I’ll concede that driving with a headset might be slightly less dangerous than driving while holding a phone to your ear. In the end, though, the mental distraction is the main issue. So, the big question is, will this law cause more or less cell-phone use, and thus more or less mental distraction.
I’ve already see big shopping display advertisements… “get your bluetooth headset now so you can safely talk on the phone while driving.” This is clearly sending the wrong message; the new law is legitimizing this distracting activity. So, in the end, I think the law is going to encourage more phone use and thus more distraction.
Also, curiously, the law doesn’t forbid dialing the phone or text messaging with a phone. Lots of phones have touch-screen interfaces, which pretty much require you to look at the phone to dial or text. In this case (and dialing and texting in general) the driver distraction is mental, physical, and visual all at the same time.
Ban all cell phone usage while driving. And while we’re at it also add a pre-emptive ban on driver internet use, watching videos, reading the paper, shaving or fiddlng with a GPS.
Doesn’t just about every state already have laws against distracted driving, including eating. I know i have heard of people getting tickets for eating while driving, or barely driving. This is just another law that wont get inforced.
Robstar the same thing happened to me after taking the MSF course. I actually found out I had been driving a lot like a motorcyclist all along and didn’t even know it. It should be a required class to pass before anyone gets there license. Live a few days in the motorcyclist shoes and YOU WILL change your driving habits. Unless you are one of those drunk Harley riders that go from bar to bar on the weekend and don’t battle traffic commuting.
i think in msall TN town the police would have ticket themselves first. I see them looking their laptops and talking on the cellphones everyhtime I take the time to look. Don’t get me wrong I appeciate all they do for us but they are very busy guys with all that multi-tasking…
Does anyone have a link to some real data on accident causation and cell phones?
I ask, because I’m unconvinced that phones (hands free or not) are a big cause of accidents. (though I’m willing to be persuaded by data) It’s kind of like saying women shouldn’t be applying mascara while driving – true enough, but how many accidents are actually caused by mascara application while driving?
If the license test actually required any level of skill or a decent amount of instruction the question would be moot.
one day i nearly rear ended someone because i was trying to kill a mosquito that was flying around the inside of the windshield.
Hang up and f**king DRIVE!
(yeah… this subject touches a nerve. My wife has been hit twice by cell-phone yakking morons)
–chuck
I’m one of the dutiful multitude in Washington state who went out and bought a Bluetooth headset while this law was pending. I hate looking like a Borg-assimilated Patrick Stewart, but my phone’s got nifty voice-activated dialing so I don’t need to touch the phone at all.
This law won’t do much, if any, harm. These tickets don’t go on your driving record, and insurers/employers will never know about them unless you tell them. Most people won’t even have to spend the $20 for a cheapo Bluetooth headset, since most newer phones today have a ‘speakerphone’ function which complies with the new Washington law. (And yes, you are allowed to dial while driving. You just can’t hold the phone to your head.)
And if anybody gets ticketed in Washington for driving while calling, I’d suggest buying a Bluetooth and showing the prosecutor the receipt when you go to court. (Disclaimer: I do this for a living.)
Will it save hundreds of lives? Good question; Washington and California will have to wait a few years and compare the numbers. I don’t object to a slight inconvenience, especially when it only mildly curtails a convenience/habit that wasn’t even possible (for most of us) twenty years ago.
And I can’t speak to California law, but Driving While Texting has been strictly verboten in Washington State since January. (RCW 46.61.668)
Chris
>># shaker :
>>July 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
>>
>>But (get this) texting is still legal.
I’m all for the new law, if only because it takes one thing out of the hands of drivers. I know, they still have notes, makeup, food, coffee etc., but if this increases the use of turn signals – which seem to be “broken” on 50% of new cars, especially sporty imports – then good.
I’d rather that people take the act of driving more seriously than less.
Still, the worst is being in the passenger seat, and the driver feels like he/she needs to look right at you when speaking to you.
My Prius’s bluetooth hands-free is not loud enough at 70 MPH. I have to slow down to 60 MPH or even 55 to hear the person on the other end.
The slowdown is an automatic function of my brain, so I drive in the right lane when I’m on the phone.
It’s rare, but if I need to make better time, I activate the bluetooth dongle and drive with that directly in my ear.
My cell phone, an AT&T Tilt, is only capable of direct or bluetooth. No wired headset capability, which is unfortunate.
My opinion is that it was the best they could do. They also outlawed the use of phones or texting while driving entirely for minors, but how are they supposed to enforce that? Like most people, I’ve been known to talk back to the guy on the radio, cheer along with the crowd while listening to a baseball game, or sing along with a favorite song. How is a cop supposed to know that I’m not talking on a handfree phone?
I also found on my most receent trip last week that using a hands free device did not alleviate the main problem with talking on a cell phone while driving, lack of attention to the road, and potentially made it even worse as I didn’t have to hold the phone to my ear.
The big advantage of the hands-free phone is not having to dial. According to a study which came out a couple of years ago, in which they put cameras in 100 cars, for a year, half of the cell related accidents are caused by dialing, and half by talking. The reason: dialing is much, much, much more distracting than talking. Together, dialing and talking caused ~7% of the accidents recorded in the study.
More generally, anything that took the eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds multiplied the risk per time many-fold.
Thus, it’s absolutely nuts for texting to be legal.
Until they come up with a will and a way to test judgement at the DMV, then yes, it makes sense to require hands free. I see people making bad decisions all the time to avoid putting the phone down. There are just too many folks who can’t drive with one hand.
Johnny,
Here is something you should try. It takes practice, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and it will become almost effortless habit.
When driving without distraction. Very purposefully keep your eyes moving. Don’t let them rest for more than a couple seconds on any given subject. Try to figure out a routine like scan that will add safety, without being too tiring. It will cause fatigue at first. But you will see that you can get a full picture of your situational awareness, and know where your “outs” are.
Once you have it down, when on the phone, ALWAYS use the scan routine. If it gets too tiring, hang up. Eventually, you may find you will start driving like that all the time. So much the better. You will likely be safer on the phone than most people are off the phone.
If you have to always stare ahead to stay in your lane, then stop driving, you old fart! ;)
Few things:
1. I believe they simply forgot to ban texting while driving. There wasn’t an intentional attempt to keep it legal.
2. Every other ad for the past month on the radio has been for bluetooth devices.
3. This law also bans the use of CB or other two way radios while driving-except by the operators of big rigs. So, it’s against the law for a guy driving a small pickup to use it (for, say, a maintenance department at a school district), but it’s perfectly legal for somebody driving something ten times as heavy to do so.
I see no evidence that phones are particularly a problem.
Drill down to root causes, and most traffic accidents are ultimately caused by a combination of discourtesy and a general disinterest in cooperative, thoughtful behavior. If people use their cars as a weapon or a tool for zoning out, the problem is with their mindsets, not with their devices.
If phones were as bad as they claim, we should be seeing death and accident rates climbing exponentially. In fact, the opposite is happening.
Phones have become the new alibi for bad behavior. There’s no evidence to suggest that phone users who get into accidents would have avoided the accidents had they not had phones.
There are no shortages of distractions behind the wheel. The phone is easily replaced by a wide number of other things that can rationalize distracted behavior.
Meanwhile, plenty of people drive with phones without causing wrecks at all. We don’t need fewer phones or more headsets, just fewer licenses.
This law is not meant to discourage cell phone use. It is meant to encourage safe cell phone use.
I’m all for it. I normally detest govt intrusion. But I wouldn’t mind an outright ban on all cell phones in cars.
You’ve got the right idea. It’s not holding the phone that is the distraction, it’s the phone call itself.
PCH,
What you say makes some sense.
The recent hyperbole is all about how cell phone use is as bad as drunk driving.
If that were true, it certainly does not show in the statistics, even if people are using the phone as an excuse. The rise in accidents has been nowhere near a doubling of the drunk driving amount. Are we to believe there are more drunks than cell phone users?
It will do nothing. You guys are lucky out there though, we have a cell phone law in NY and everyone ignores the fact that it exists. Even the cops do not enforce it. I have narrowly escaped untold numbers of accidents where the person was yakking away and not even looking forward. It’s twice as frustrating when they are breaking the law and almost killing you at the same time.
I concur completely with pch101. Where are the dead bodies? I mean, the real ones, not the math-model extrapolated ones.
If New York’s hands-free law has been in effect for years, can anyone point to statistics that show a net decrease in accidents/injuries/fatalities?
An interesting story I stumbled on the other day:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/20/driving.study/index.html
“And while talking on a cell phone was less risky than dialing, it was a factor in almost as many crashes because it was done far more often, the researchers said.”
This is followed by the following URL:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0604/popup.risky.driving/frameset.exclude.html
… which, in stark contrast to the text of the CNN story, says that falling asleep at the wheel causes almost 3x as many accidents as dialing a phone, or talking into one. In fact, it exceeds the risk of all other accident causing elements combined!
Where is the media pandemonium about driver fatigue? Where are the draconian laws against it? Why are people not stopped and given exhaustion tests, where if they fail, the cars are seized, the drivers arrested?
This is a serious question that needs an answer, because, as far as I have been able to determine, the next step up in terms of actual risk — real accidents, actual blood, a heaping pile of dead bodies — is drunk driving.
But a little voice tells me that we won’t be finding this discussed much in the media proper: destructive hate is easy, constructive truth is hard.
PCH101, do you not drive on American roads? Or are you the guy on the phone that I’m avoiding because you wander from lane to lane never using a turn signal, or speeding up and slowing down randomly, or are you the guy that almost hit me in a crosswalk as he was turning (I had the walk light) because he was too busy yakking to actually pay attention?
Most of us recognize the signs of the idiot on the phone and adjust accordingly. I would suggest that a lot of accidents are avoided because of the defensive driving of other motorists. And perhaps drunk drivers tend to drive faster or later at night (drunk, tired, AND low visibility), hence the higher death toll associated with that behavior (don’t know if that’s been equalized in comparisons with cell phone impaired driving).
As for tired driving, yes absolutely that is a huge problem. Totally impossible now to quantify “tiredness”, so how would you enforce a ban against tired driving? But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to control the bad behaviors that we CAN legislate against.
PCH101, do you not drive on American roads? Or are you the guy on the phone that I’m avoiding because you wander from lane to lane never using a turn signal, or speeding up and slowing down randomly, or are you the guy that almost hit me in a crosswalk as he was turning (I had the walk light) because he was too busy yakking to actually pay attention?
Please, you are offering the sort of reply that frankly just makes me want to write you off.
As it turns out, I’m a two-hands-on-the-wheel, turn signaling, pass left/ keep right, vehemently anti-tailgating, keep-that-damn-coffee-out-of-my-sacred-car kind of guy. So thanks, but no.
But I like facts to go with my morning coffee, and I don’t see them. The reality of traffic accident data does not correlate with kneejerk reactions like yours.
As Landcrusher notes, the comparisons to DUI are total hyperbole. Last I checked, phone handsets do not produce slurred speech or chemically altered perception or motor skills. I can actually make a phone call and walk straight at the same time. (I could also chew gum, but that would be a bit rude to smack gum while having a conversation.)
If phones were the equivalent of DUI, there should be stacks of bodies all over the highways. The increase in accident, death and injury rates should be notable, as phone usage is quite common.
As it turns out, it is actually the opposite — these figures are falling steadily, as they have for decades. For whatever reason, in this case, reality refuses to correlate with hypothetical studies. I don’t know about you, but I tend to use reality for forming my conclusions.
In practice, what seems to be happening is that (a) the loss in reaction time is slight (the numerous studies that I’ve seen conclude that this amounts to about 1/8th of a second) and (b) people adjust for this time when using a phone, effectively negating the loss.
Phones Kill is the modern equivalent of Speed Kills. Sounds nice on paper, but isn’t true in practice. What kills people is rude driving, intoxicated driving, self-centered driving and those who believe that every road incident is someone else’s fault, because it’s more fun to point fingers than it is to take responsibility.
My thoughts about cell phones are not just anecdotally based. I have seen the research that indicates strongly that humans simply do not multi task, we just think we do. The brain scan stuff is absolutely fascinating.
I just can’t discount the hard science that says that the mental drain that a phone conversation involves interferes with the ability to commit attention to other tasks.
Here is a link to one of the engineering docs, hardly kneejerk, that discusses inattention far more eloquently than I can:
http://www.umich.edu/~driving/publications/GreenConvergence04paper4b.pdf
Driving with one hand while having a distracting conversation on a cellphone makes a good driver marginally worse… but it makes a bad driver significantly more incompetent.
Maybe it is just the demographic that I have a chance to observe, but the a large number of [insert stereotypical driver] people I see almost treat the phone-conversation as priority-1, and actually piloting their 2-ton vehicle as the distraction.
So yeah, while it won’t solve everything, IMO, it is definitely a step in the right direction.
mdf,
Well put.
66Nova,
Let’s say we take your basic point, and PCH’s, and agree with both of them:
A: Cell phone usage is distracting and leads to a severe deterioration of driving skill.
B: There has been no statistical increase in accidents and fatalities that would justify the concern over cell phone distractions to driving.
Okay. There is no contradiction. I see a lot of room for other facts and studies to explain the present situation. What I don’t see is a lot of reason for legislation.
We aren’t dependent on researchers and scientists to tell us the results of cell phone use in cars. The data is plain to see because so many people are now doing it, and the sky has not fallen.
Perhaps we need a study to see what percentage of miles driven are actually done on a cell phone. Then, we could compare the accident rate of people actually on a cell phone with those not on a cell phone and come up with a useful number.
What I really want to see is some study on the variance of driver ability even without a cell phone. Then tell me what you will do about THAT. Certainly it would make sense to take drivers off the road who simply can’t safely operate a vehicle, but most states aren’t even trying.
The legislatures are responding to the whining of the voters, and if they want to pass the hands free law, then it won’t really cost us much, but it’s still pandering. You can show all the evidence you want, but since it’s not seemingly affecting the overall situation, it should not lead to new laws.