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Studies show that laws alone will not dramatically reduce distracted driving behavior. To accomplish that goal, we need visible and effective public safety campaigns. What are the potential cost savings? Well, if a safety campaign resulted in just a modest 10% reduction in distracted driving incidents, we could save $50 million dollars annually.
How much stronger? Well, when we plug KDOT's numbers into the equation, the cost increase for fatalities alone jumps from $27 million to about $82 million dollars per year. Costly, indeed. And mind you, that's just the economic cost for one, comparatively sparsely populated state.
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Deb
To add to the discussion, the issue with the neural processing power is that one outcome is drivers can look at the road and still not see all the information they need to drive safely. The brain cannot process all the visual information pouring in, particularly visual information in a moving environment. The danger is that drivers may believe they do see all details in the driving environment while they're talking on a phone. They lack the awareness that they actually do not. Unfortunately people cannot be aware of visual information that they never see when they're "looking but not seeing." So they lack the awareness to decrease exposure to the distraction. But when people are looking away from the road to, for example, look at kids in the back seat, or look at the dashboard controls, they are aware of the distraction and limit the time spent looking away. Granted, crashes do still happen while people are looking away from the road. But people do at least know to limit their exposure to the "looking away" hazard.
jones
Will the human race that lives in Moneyland with all the gadgets made in Destituteland under sweatshop wages with no thought beyond "How Cool!" and "I can do this without thinking!" "GIMME, GIMME, GIMME." EVER again understand what it is to really LIVE, breathe, and watch the sunrise and/or set over a plot of land on which they have gown by the sweat of their backs and brows a garden of uncontaminated food and in the process, spent time talking, arguing, laughing with one another on a level of intimacy? OR, with that human race, be electronically controlled by gadgets that allow only a push of a button to transport them out of reality into brain-deadness with no understanding of choice and incentive, let alone any feelings that once made them human? Talk about giving up you life! ROBOTS, here we come!
Refroidisseur Eau
While I agree that texting and driving is extremely bad and dangerous, there are case where the law should be more flexible. We are stuck this year with an incredible problem where I live: long trafic jams. I have been pulled off for driving and texting while I was stucked in a two hours jam, although my motor was turned off. I am tired of seeing new bills being passed and having to endure agents that only go by the book and never seem to use their brain.
Bill Jenkins
The Doctor: I don't disagree with anything you said, but consumption of neural processing power is not the only factor in the danger of distracted driving. (I think pretty intensely about math problems while I drive, yet I doubt anyone would accuse me of distracted driving -- to the contrary, I suspect that under-using your brain while driving can lead to a dangerous level of monotony.) Much more significant than neural distraction is actual time looking away from the road -- at even modest freeway speeds, a typical car traverses the length of a football field in only three seconds. Think about the number of things that could go wrong in the span of someone trying to find a map in the back seat. So important is this aspect of distracted driving that some studies have even indicated that the act of turning your head to look in a side lane behind you does more harm than good, due to the fraction of a second you're looking away from the road. This provides a pretty good metric by which to judge the worst offenders among the distractions: texting, reaching to the back seat, fiddling with the radio, all very bad because of the time you have to look away from the road to perform them.
Joel
Drivers have different levels of competence and awareness, and so legislating against specific behaviors will never work. Anything can cause an accident, depending on how good or bad the driver is. The offense we punish should be "Failure to maintain control of vehicle" rather than "texting" or "changing the radio" or "disciplining a child in the back seat" or "waving to an old boyfriend in the car in the next lane" or "worrying about whether one forgot to pack one's favorite bowling ball for the upcoming Scouts and Seniors Nascar-on-Horseback overnight."
Brad
There is a huge difference between having a conversation with someone on the phone, hands free or otherwise, and holding a conversation with someone in your car, or listening to the radio. If you're talking to someone on the phone, they cannot see the road conditions in front of you change. If you're having a conversation with someone who is in the car with you, they can. When my wife and I go out together in our car, she quiets down when traffic gets heavy, or the road gets twisty and windy in mountainous areas. I've never had to ask her to do it, she just stops talking until the traffic thins out or the road conditions improve. People have been driving with companions in cars since cars where invented, and no one has ever come out and said that the occupants of a vehicle are safer if they are alone in it (except maybe for new drivers, which is why many jurisdictions have rules against new drivers who only have learning permits being limited to having only one other person in the car, and that person must have a full license). On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence about the deadly consequences of talking on the phone while driving. Listening to music on the radio is fundamentally different than participating in a conversation, because you're not interacting with the radio, you're just listening to it. And even with talk radio, where you might be more mentally engaged than you are singing along with your tunes, you're still not interacting with the radio announcers, so you can change the focus of your concentration much more rapidly.
Bill Jenkins
Joel: Yes. Exactly.
Jeff Reynolds
Let's just decrease the number of idiots on the road with stricter driving tests. I see lots of people who just can't seem to drive and do one other thing, whether it's a phone call, discussion with another passenger, manipulating the radio, cheeseburger, etc., just due to simple lack of coordination. They should be eliminated at the driver's test.
s.w.
I just want to say that if you think you never have had even a near miss, it's because of people like us who never do any of things mentioned and touch the radio dial only when stopped. And pray every time we get into the car for a safe drive with no one getting hurt. I have avoided near misses, or even worse, by watching out for you when you make awful, dangerous turns, etc. I see that he/she has a phone stuck to ear. So, I say, oh, that's why he is driving erratically or he is not moving after the light has changed.
katy
The only time this has become a true conversation was after all of the fabulous technology came into our lives. We've had radios and food and mascara and kids and whatever distracting us while driving for years. However now distraction has become such a problem that reports like this have to be done. Almost daily I see someone who looks like a drunk driver, swerving all over, only to notice that they are texting and that's why they aren't paying attention. And my state has laws against texting and driving! But Bill's right, we can't discredit all of those other things that crummy drivers do. The only true way to accurately prove how dangerous things like cell phones are to us on the roads would be to do a before and after, like comparing crashes in 1980 to now... Thanks so much for the great studies and good work!
JUlie
This is the first I've heard of the Federal Highway Administration Technical Advisory. Who are they and how do they come up with these cost numbers? What is included in them? Is this the cost of the rescue and medical services only or are there other intangibles figured in? I agree with Bill's points, too.
Mary
In response to the "why mobile phones and why not radios or conversations...". You do what you can. It is easier to attack and eliminate discrete issues and, hopefully, reduce the catastrophic effects of distracted driving little by little. So, let's get technology working on voice activated radio controls or bump technology for your GPS system -- fun ideas and distraction reducers all rolled into one! LOVE the show even though I don't know the first freaking thing about my car.
Andrew Kaufman
It is quite sad that someone cannot even get it in their heads when shown numbers like these. I personally don't know anyone who has had or caused an accident because of distracted driving, but I certainly can understand the reasons for campaigning to stop it. Obviously we will never be able to eliminate it completely, just like we haven't eliminated drunken driving or drug use, but if we can, at least reduce the costs, it will help out immensely. And driver and teen education is going to be one of the best starting points.
Bill Jenkins
While I don't disagree with the conclusion, there are two things that strike me as disingenuous about this article: 1) It seems to conflate distracted driving with cell phone use (especially going from the 28% statistic to the "At least a quarter..." line). Things like "eating fast food while driving" or "fiddling with the radio while driving" is at least as dangerous, and contribute to this 28%, and yet get no mention in distracted driving laws. Why? 2) If you're going to do a cost-benefit analysis, you have to actually includes both costs and benefits. The benefits of distracted driving laws are presented -- but what about the costs? From the economic vantage point that the article seems to want to take, you have to figure in the decreased efficiency of every businessperson in Kansas (or wherever) who is typically productive while they drive, the conjestion caused by people pulling over to make/take important phone calls, etc. While I'm certainly not arguing that these costs would alter the end result of this post, I think you'd find them to be non-negligible. Bill
Bill Jenkins
Brad: Perhaps I've missed it, but it looks to me like you're attacking a straw man. I don't think anyone brought up either of your examples, talking to companions in your car or listening to the radio. I would agree that either of those are nigh on harmless. But things like reaching to the back seat floor to grab the rattle your infant dropped, or searching for napkins to clean up the soda you just spilled, much less so.
Beth
$500 million dollars is redundant
The Doctor
Mostly this is a response to Mr. Jenkins. Using a cell phone is more dangerous than any other common cause of distracted driving, especially for texting. This is because of the number of neural processes required for the activity. Fast food, or any eating doesn't require much conscious thought, if any. MP3 players require some, although not for long if you know your way around the play lists. Texting however requires intense hand-eye coordination as well as a minimum of 3 processes in the language center. Meaning that most people have little left in terms of processing power left to accommodate driving. Fiddling with the radio is actually more complicated than mp3 players because there's less memory draw and therefore more focus required. The reason that it is looked at so much is that it is actually common enough to warrant it's own box on the accident cause list (it's box #7 in most states). Now the actual reason that conversations are less likely to cause an accident is that there are 2+ people in the vehicle, increasing the likelihood that someone will notice something going wrong, despite the destractions
Noneya
Awareness! Yes! That includes making me aware as well. I have several advanced driver traning classes under my belt and I am aware that I now fit a dangerous category of driver due to me having so much training but it all being so far in my past that I feel better trained than I currently am. On top of that we now have GPS and other legitimate distractions in our attention span while negotiating the blind/ignorant drivers off each quarter of your car while you are driving. We had lots of info back in the 70s on distractions the driver was unable to avoid like looking at road signs and other useful information and there were no cell phones in my day.
Brian
It's sad that someone needs to compile statistics like this (and they do need to!) to get such an obvious point across: if you're blessed enough to be part of the species with opposable thumbs, you ought to be using the brain that comes along with the package!
Brian
It's sad that someone needs to compile statistics like this (and they do need to!) to get such an obvious point across: if you're blessed enough to be part of the species with opposable thumbs, you ought to be using the brain that comes along with the package!!
A
How cine there is no share button our way to email this?
Shannon
Brian, If only that were the case. Unfortunately the majority of people don't view things as you do. Hence the need for laws and persuasive marketing campaigns. -S
Hesch Rothman
I fully and without reservation understand and support the campaign against holding a phone (or any other device - mp3, etc.) much less txting while driving; I look forward to steering wheel controls, or even better, voice controls, for the car audio, becoming standard on all cars. What I have a problem with is the rise of including hands-free phone-use in the same restrictions / rules! While I *DO* understand that some people habitually 'look at the sky' or some such while talking on the phone, I think these are the same (or at least the same number of) people who can't keep their eyes or their minds on the road while they are talking to or even listening to someone else *IN* the car, or can't resist 'talking with their hands'!! Is the next ban going to be on conversation in the car?!?!
donttwd
Technology is the problem and technology can solve the problem. Teens are losing their lives from distracted driving with mobile phones. Cellcontrol is the best solution I have found. With Cellcontrol (www.cellcontrol.com) parents have the ability to set rules on what a phone can and cannot do when a car is moving. Texting and driving is eliminated. Cellcontrol is the worlds most advanced technology to solve this problem utilizing a signal directly from your vehicle to determine movement ensures you are only blocked in YOUR vehicle(s) not while a passenger in another vehicle like GPS based solutions. This technology will save lives!