Are cellphone drivers worse than drunks?

Over the next few days, I’m going to be posting items about some of the different studies that have been done on how talking on a cellphone affects driving. On July 1, new laws go into effect in California that prohibit motorists from holding a cellphone and driving -- in other words, they have to use hands-free devices.

Last week I spoke with Dave Strayer, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah. He has been part of a team of researchers who over the last several years has published several studies on the topic and tested how cellphones affect motorists using a driving simulator (above right).

Maybe this quote from Strayer on a recent university press release gives you a hint of how he feels:

"At the end of the day, the average person's commute is longer because of that person who is on the cellphone right in front of them. That SOB on the cellphone is slowing you down and making you late."

Strayer believes that it's the conversation, not the device that is diverting the attention of motorists from the road. He said that hands-free laws are not based on good science.

"It’s also possible [such laws] can be sending another message to people that we’ve solved the problem, and technology has come to the rescue," Strayer said. "If it encourages people to talk when they otherwise [would] not talk, it could be counterproductive and make roads less safe."

Using the driving simulator, his team concluded that people talking on a hands-free phone while driving pretty much drive as if they were drunk and they drive slower than the traffic around them. In particular, motorists engaged in phone conversations were less likely to change lanes and tended not to pass slow traffic in front of them.

I asked him about other distractions that motorists face. For example, people eating greasy French fries, playing with their iPod or screaming at their kids. Strayer said the difference is that those types of distractions tend to be ephemeral and pass quickly, whereas cellphone conversations can last a long time.

Legislators in most states have shied away from passing cellphone driving laws, and no state has passed a law saying you can’t talk on a cellphone at all. So I asked Strayer what he thinks will happen if California's new hands-free laws doesn't have an impact.

His answer: Change may come about because of pressure from the insurance industry or from large employers, who worry about being responsible if one of their employees gets involved in a cell phone-driving accident.

"I was contacted today by the CEO at DuPont – they’re interested in looking at ways to institute corporate policies that doesn’t expose them to huge liabilities if an employee hits and kills somebody on the job," Strayer said.

Of course, there are others who believe strongly that the new law will make a big difference safety-wise. Next up, I’ll look at one of those studies.

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: Ivana Vladisavljevic / University of Utah

Comments

[BOB2]

Cell phone users are certainly bad for traffic, talikiing, multi-tasking, and the in-attention it causes results in unstable traffic flow leading to more congestion, more accidents, more deaths, more injuries, more fuel consumption, and more emissions of pollutants. You wouldn't allow people to blow cigarette smoke in childrens faces because of the health and safety impacts, and we have made such behavior socially unacceptable. So why do we think it is socially acceptable to engage in behavior on cell phones when driving that is just as deadly? Just Hang Up and Drive, before you kill someone!

[Al Ramirez]

Santa Monica has got to have the worse Cell Phone Drivers in their Priuses who refuse to make a complete and full stops because even though they bought an electric car they don't like it when the gas shuts off and rolls to battery power.

Then there's the tandem jerks on the road who think its their job to set a new speed limit of 40 MPH on the freeway by driving right next to each other and preventing the flow of traffic. Often not paying attention to the cars in front of them who are now more the 25 car lengths away. The article hits clearly on these self absorbd fools.

All Cellphones and Hand Held Devices need to be reconfigured (easily and technically possible) not to work at any considerable Mobile Speeds (anything over 20 MPH) and rather be limited portable speeds (think walking around speed) and thus elimating the dangerous era of talking and texting while driving. Car phones should be Back Seat Anchored only Mobile Capable (like DVDs players have been ruled) so passengers in a limo or taxi can talk if they really are such VIPs that they can't miss a call..

[christy]

I would like to say a thing or two about road rage in general. I think it has become way too acceptable for people to treat other drivers rudely and with little decency. While no one like being cut off, since when has that been grounds for harassing them, flipping them off, then cutting them off again, and just treating them horribly?? I am saddened and embarrassed by the way people treat others, esp on the road.
People think it is acceptable because they are cowards hiding in their car. lord knows they wouldnt react this way if someone cut them in line at the grocery store.
shape up people and calm down.

[robert NO longer in LA]

Drunks are like Al Qaeda; you know, once they get into the bottle for the tenth, or hundredth time, they're out there, and will DO a 9/11 on someone's family. Kudo, applause to all of your who beat the demon, but for the rest, they should be locked up for minimum of 5 years JUST for driving drunk, and LIFE, for killing someone, AGAIN! But society is too dysfunctional; we prefer to keep turning the 'other cheek' again, and again, and again....just like we re-elect stupid, corrupt, inept politicians.

[Joe]

Sorry, should have kept reading before I posted the first time. Same mistake in the last sentence of the second paragraph.

[Karen]

"Strayer believes that it's the conversation, not the device that is diverting the attention of motorists from the road."

There's more information on the study on the University site, and the studies were done using individual drivers, not carpoolers or any situation where there were other people in the vehicle. By extension, then, should we pass a No Conversation law for all drivers? The hands-free law may be only a partial improvement, but it IS an improvement.

[Joe]

Stupid, nitpicky comment I know, but heck, let's shoot for literacy here. In the first paragraph, the correct word is "affects." The sentence should be "...how talking on a cellphone affects driving," not "effects."