Federal Summit Eyes Crackdown On Texting While Driving 408
suraj.sun sends along this quote from an Associated Press report:
"Opening a government meeting on auto safety, the Obama administration reported Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in vehicle crashes connected to driver distraction, a striking indication of the dangers of using mobile devices behind the wheel. The Transportation Department was bringing together experts over two days for what it's calling a 'distracted driving summit' to take a hard look at the highway hazards caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting from behind the wheel. ... Driver distraction was involved in 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal and seven states and the district have banned driving while talking on a handheld cell phone, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Many safety groups have urged a nationwide ban on texting and on using handheld mobile devices while behind the wheel."
Why do the states text then? (Score:5, Interesting)
At least 22 states currently text traffic conditions, emergencies, etc to motorist.
Driving is risky (Score:3, Interesting)
Not paying attention while driving is even riskier. Do we really need to establish a new Federal law, complete with its own bureaucracy and enforcement regime to control (another) risky behavior?
At what point will people feel "safe"?
Re: recent British study (Score:3, Interesting)
The study showed that drivers who text and drive become more than one third slower than if they were coherent and not texting - this was compared to a person at the DUI limit or under the influence of illegal drugs. Text messaging lowered reaction time by 35 percent, while people high on marijuana slowed down 21 percent and those who were drunk slowed down by 12 percent.
On top of those findings, people reading or writing text messages drifted out of their lane more than people who were focused solely on driving. Texters also had a more difficult maintaining a safe distance from cars around them.
Around half of British drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 text while driving, the RAC Foundation said.
"When texting, drivers are distracted by taking their hand off the wheel to use their phone, by trying to read small text on the phone display and by thinking about how to write their message," said Dr. Nick Reed, TRL senior human factors researcher. "This combination of factors resulted in the impairments to reaction time and vehicle control that place the driver at a greater risk than having consumed alcohol to the legal limit for driving."
Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy was coming right at me, crossing 2 lanes of traffic one night. Driver behind him reported that he was looking down and fumbling with a device while driving (likely texting):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28154298@N05/sets/72157605928214101/detail/ [flickr.com]
He never slowed down after hitting the bank on the opposite side of the road, and nailed the house at around 50mph.
In the USA speed is the only ticket... (Score:3, Interesting)
...and maybe running red lights. But you'll never see existing driving-while-distracted laws enforced. So all this hullabaloo about a Federal Summit ignores the fundamental flaw in roadway policing. The cops pretty much ONLY care about the speed you're going. They never pull anyone over for violating basic rules like failing to use a turn signal, zig-zaggers who change lanes endlessly to get 3 car lengths ahead, etc. And to make it even more inane, the speed limits are arbitrary and political, rarely having a correlation to the road they are posted on.
Re:Its just stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
What about everything else? Makeup, Food, Kids, etc? Does the EU regulate what you can and can't do in your cars? I know Americans are different from a few countries in the regard that driving is a waste of your time and you can multitask, where other countries see driving as 'the task at hand'.
After driving German cars for most of my life, you can see that Germans use their cars to drive. I can just see the conversation now from back in the day:
Manager: Zee Americans komplain about 'cup holders'.
Engineer: Vee can not put cup holders. Vee vill spill Das Bier! Plus, How can you drink at 175 kph?
Manager: Zee Americans vant it. Zehr 'interstate' has 100 kph limit.
Engineer: Oh. Here. Perfekt cup holder for 12 oz. Plenty of fluid for zeh average human.
Before 1993 VW's didn't come with any cup holder.
1993-1999 You could fit a can of soda... but not use the ashtray.
1999+ they seem to hold some bigger cups/cans.
Compared to most American cars I've been in since the 1980s seem to be able to hold a Super Gulp 64 with ease.
Idiotic knee-jerk: "why, there ouughtta be a law" (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree that distracted drivers is a BIG problem. However, the response to it is idiotic:
Why is it idiotic?
There are laws already covering it. If you're driving >10mph under the limit, you're guilty of a reverse "speeding" infraction, AND hindering the flow of traffic. Two lucrative finable offenses.
If you are weaving in and out of your lane you are guilty of two or three offenses: failure to maintain control of your vehicle, improper lane changes (one offense per time you cross the line without using turn indicators), and reckless driving,
If you sail right through a stop or yield sign, or if you change lanes cutting someone off (aside from anyone exceeding the speed limit or anyone using the breakdown lane - here in MA the breakdown lane MUST yield to ALL other traffic where breakdown lane travel is allowed, but unfortunately the massholes who use it use it as a passing lane and will not yield to anyone) you're guilty of reckless driving and ignoring rights of way, yield, and traffic signal laws.
Either way you look at it, there are laws in place which can be used to solve this problem once and for all. However, thanks to assholes who don't think logically, but think with their hearts "Oh someone think of the children" my using my GPS could be outlawed. That's okay though because I will go back to using a compass and street directories. That way, I can become a distracted driver who is paging through a thick book and staring at a map to figure out where I am but that will be perfectly legal, and presumably safer than using my handheld gps/phone with its realtime traffic updates.. Right? Of course the printed street directory will be safer. Gotcha.
See the problem is the massholes causing the problem are going unpunished because revenue officers are too busy pulling people over who are "speeding" on the interstate (although those evil speeders are traveling at speeds of at least 60mph slower than the interstates were originally designed for - based on 1960s automotive suspension technologies) so they can meet their quotas rather than enforcing actual safety issues covered by law. No, instead it's just easier to punish everyone because of the irresponsible few. Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don't you dare pick up that cellphone if you're a doctor or an EMT on call. Don't you dare pick up that phone and call for directions when you're lost (instead, drive around erractically as you figure out where you are). Don't you dare check your GPS or click "reroute."
Instead, much like the drinking age, using cellphones without headsets, and trans fats and sodas, let's throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let's punish EVERYONE for the irresponsibility of the few.
Re:Its just stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just marketing hype by politicians to look good doing absolutely nothing useful.
The big gripe I have is comparing texting while driving to drunk driving. They simply are not remotely the same. After a horn honking at them the texter is going to be alert and aware of what's going on around them.
Perhaps texting while driving is actually worse since the effects can be mitigated in an instant, whereas the drunk is on going and can't solve the issue for hours. So a few moments of inattention from texting cause the same results as a drunk's constant impairment.
And even if it is worse, it's a only a training issue. Police cars today have full laptops they use while driving, not to mention cell phones and blackberries and yet we don't see the police having extraordinary accident rates do we? Why? because they are trained for the situation and the tools. Give people proper training and you'll see accident rates of *all* types go way way down.
An example:
I got pulled over a few years ago in VA for flashing my high beams at a slowpoke in the left lane. The ticket? Improper use of high beams. If flashing them is improper, why the hell is it a ready made 'feature' in every car today? Oh and it was daytime, so no way my beams were brighter than the sunlight.
Was I driving perhaps a tad aggressively? yeah I'll admit to that, but if he hadn't been going 55 in the left lane in a 65 zone with a bunch of backed up traffic waiting on him...
Discussing all this with the officer blew my mind:
Me: Doesn't he have to yield to my visual or audible signal?
Officer: I'm not aware of any such law? (upon looking it up, the VA law is audible signal only hence my ticket)
Me: But he's going to slow in the left lane? I can't pass him on the right, that's a dangerous procedure isn't it?
Officer: You can pass him on the right no problem.
Me: Seriously? When did that change?
Think about it. Apparently much of what I learned in driver's ed is no longer the law. Keep right except to pass - gone! Yield to overtaking traffic - gone! Passing on the right illegal - gone!
What's next? If we don't properly train people, we get the anarchy on the roads we see...
Re:Its just stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
They should also ban passengers in cars then, if its the conversation.
A real person in the car shares your entire context of the traffic situation, communicates using full audio bandwidth and a large dynamic range in a full 3-d sound field.
You talk to someone on a cellphone using about 3kHz of bandwidth, very poor dynamic range, piped through a tiny point source speaker, all made worse by the noisy environment of the car. The random infuriating glitches and dropouts in many wireless connections don't help either.
Phone etiquette also makes it rude to ignore the talker or leave long gaps in the conversation, and the person on the other end has no way to know that such gaffes might be due to traffic. All of this means that when you're on a cellphone, much of your brain horsepower must be dedicated without interruption to audio signal processing, to the detriment of dealing with the traffic around you. (Even more of your brain has to be used up trying to reconstruct in your mind a model of what the other party on the phone is meaning and feeling, but without the benefits of subtle queues, gestures, and facial expressions that you get in person.)
It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't seem to understand the difference in the two situations.
Re:Its just stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a recent push to ticket people who cruise in the left lane here in IL. We are still meant to ride in the right lanes and use the left lanes for passing. I have yet to see anyone pulled over for doing 55 in the left lane of a 65 mph zone though. It'd be nice if they did, it would do a lot to prevent road rage.
Re:Its just stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
I might be younger than you, but I've never been taught that passing on the right was illegal -- just a bad idea. Apparently on the Autobahn it is illegal and taken very seriously (along with blocking up the left lane). I've heard arguments that such a system winds up being a lot safer than the American system of enforcing speed limits and not much else, but there are enough differences between (and even within) the two systems that I'm not sure about drawing big, general conclusions.
I do agree that people are trained very poorly on safe driving in the situations they're likely to encounter. Back in high school (I lived near Chicago then) we spent much more time in the driver's ed cars backing around corners and doing three-point turns than working on lane changes, merges, and other highway techniques. And it showed -- during the test everyone aced the parking-lot maneuvers and the instructor had to grab the wheel from one of my classmates on the highway. Even so, I'm not sure that's the biggest reason that police can seemingly handle a higher level of in-car activity than other drivers. I think there are two bigger differences. First, the police are at work, doing their jobs. They're not just trying to get somewhere, so they've already done their makeup, put on their uniforms, talked to their spouses and friends, etc. The dispatchers are trained in how to talk to drivers, and the radios are designed for drivers (that is, it's really easy to use them without looking at them) and are a lot simpler than cell phones. The driver will often have a partner in the car that is also focused on the task -- providing assistance and not distraction. Furthermore, if they're on patrol it's their job to pay attention to what's going on around them. I think the second difference is that police on the whole take their duty to public safety more seriously than most people -- that's why they went out for the job in the first place. They've seen lots of wrecks and don't want to cause more. Even given good training and a phone that's designed for use while driving (perhaps some of the voice-control systems in recent cars would qualify) most people just don't care very much.
Re:Its just stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
No doubt. It still boggles me that there is this big push to make texting illegal since it seems like there could be no possible way that it could be legal. As much of a freedom junkie as I am, I am still perplexed at how it could possibly be legal to read and type while hurling down highways at 50+ MPH in conditions where death can occur within seconds. Even the phone users I am willing to overlook while gritting my teeth, despite the many times that they have nearly swirved into or in front of me, always with that wide-eyed idiot gape and head snap when they suddenly realize that there are other cars on the road around them. But texting while driving is a special brand of retard phenomena that transcends even the fucking morons that apply makeup in traffic. At least the drunk guy is watching the road most of the time, even if he sees a couple of extra cars and the lane ripples a bit.
Re:Its just stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Its just stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you capable of forming an opinion on a subject without requiring a study to back it up? Are human beings in general able to master things that the average person in the average study wasn't capable of?
I don't doubt that many people are too stupid or unskilled to safely text while driving. There's also a lot of people who can't juggle, and most can't walk on a tight rope over a canyon without falling to their deaths. Yet somehow, some people are able to do these things. I can type out a text message on my phone while watching traffic and barely even thinking about the message I'm sending, the same way I can type at 100 WPM on a keyboard while simultaneously holding a conversation with someone on a different subject. It comes from practice. Maybe you aren't practiced or skilled enough; I'm sorry. That doesn't change the fact that I can do these things, and neither do your studies.