-
sponsorship
Cell-phone use while driving is a brain problem, not a hands problem. Even with hands-free use, phones suck your brain out of the physical world, fatally distracting you from the road. Second, the effect is as bad as driving drunk. Hands-free phone use can impair driving skills more than intoxication does.
We prohibit driving under the influence of alcohol. We should prohibit driving under the influence of cell phones, too. But giving up our phones is hard. How can we do it? How can we maintain what cell phones offer—mobile access—without endangering others?
More here.
-
sponsorship
Should possession of a switched-on cell phone while driving be illegal?
A trolley crash in Boston on Friday night is raising that question. First there was last year's train crash near Los Angeles, with 25 dead and 130 injured. In three hours of work before the crash, the engineer received 28 text messages and sent 29 more. He sent his last message 22 seconds before impact, just after passing a signal that would have alerted him to the disaster ahead.
Now comes the Boston crash, in which one trolley went through a red light and rear-ended another. Forty-nine people were injured—none of them gravely, but "more than a few were bloodied," according to the Globe. Officials say the operator of the second trolley "was text-messaging his girlfriend" and "was looking down at his phone and could not apply the brakes quickly enough when he looked up and saw the trolley in front of him."
If texting can cause crashes on train tracks, which prevent lateral drift, think how much more dangerous it is to text while driving a car. Only 10 states outlaw this practice, but I suspect that's largely a matter of legislators being slow to catch up with evolving technology. You can't drive while looking down and typing a message.
How about holding a phone and talking instead of typing? That way, your eyes can stay on the road. But your hand is still occupied with the phone, and you might be distracted by punching in somebody's number. Hence the push in many states to restrict cell-phone use to hands-free operation.
Still, that leaves your brain occupied by the phone conversation. And this arrangement isn't safe, either. That's why the National Safety Council wants a nationwide ban on using, not just holding, your phone while driving.
Boston's transit authority already forbids cell phone use by train and trolley operators. (Such phones aren't needed for job-related communication, since the trains have radios and emergency call buttons.) But it has let them carry their phones, and over the last three years, some four dozen train operators and bus drivers have been cited for using their phones on the job. The carry-but-don't-use policy hasn't worked.
On the heels of Friday's crash, the transit authority has announced the next logical step. It will "ban on-the-job possession of cell phones" by train operators and "fire anyone caught carrying a phone, pager, or similar device," the Globe reports. The authority's general manager puts it this way:
Leave it at home. Leave it in your car. Leave it with a friend. Leave it in a locker. But you are not to get on board that bus or [train or trolley] and have a cell phone on your person or in the cab. Period. This is going to be a zero-tolerance policy.
Massachusetts' transportation secretary thinks other states will adopt the same policy for transit operators. I bet he's right. States can justify and enforce such a policy because transit operators are on the clock working for the government.
Could they enforce a similar policy against you while you're driving your car? A law against having a cell phone in the seat next to you? I doubt it. But the logical progression is worth thinking about. First, ban texting at the wheel, because driving requires your eyes. Second, ban holding a phone, because driving requires your hands. Third, ban talking on a phone, because driving requires your brain. And fourth, if everybody's violating the ban on phone use and accidents are killing people as a result, then do what we do with alcohol: Adopt the equivalent of an open-container law for cell phones.
Open-container laws, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "prohibit the possession of any open alcoholic beverage container ... in the passenger area of any motor vehicle that is located on a public highway or right-of-way." The equivalent in this case would be a powered-up cell phone. If phone use while driving really is as dangerous as being drunk at the wheel—which is what preliminary evidence suggests—would you oppose such a law?
-
sponsorship
What's dumber than driving while talking on a cell phone? Driving while talking on a cell phone and breast-feeding a baby.
Genine Compton of Kettering, Ohio, come on down! You're the next contestant on "I used my child as a human air bag."
According to local police, Ms. Compton admitted to this feat of triple-tasking on Thursday. Here's the Dayton Daily News transcript of a fellow driver's call to the authorities:
I tried to say something to her. She literally has the little girl on the steering wheel and I said, "I can't believe you have that kid in your lap," and she said, "You want to pop your titty out and breastfeed this kid?" That's what she said to me. I'm like, "You can feed your kid when you stop." It's like wet out here. It's full of traffic. It's ridiculous. She's got like three other kids in the car.
Compton's defense? According to the police, she said "she does not deprive her child when the child is hungry."
Apparently, in our high-pressure, gadget-driven world, people have become so accustomed to multitasking that they've stopped noticing it as an elective option. No one's asking you to deprive your child. If she's hungry, by all means, feed her. And if you need to take a call while you're at it, go ahead. Just don't drive while you're doing either of these things. Is that so hard to understand?
It seems that we now think of driving as a background activity. Whatever comes up in the foreground—phone call, text message, hungry baby—gets dealt with as though it's the first thing demanding our attention. Like a projectile following a straight line in empty space, we feel at rest in motion. But we aren't projectiles, we don't follow straight lines, and the space around us isn't empty. In traffic, inertia kills.
And that doesn't just go for the lady breast-feeding at the wheel. It goes for the child-safety enthusiast who reports her. Nobody seems to have flagged this bit from the Daily News story:
"I'm following right behind her right now on Far Hills Avenue," the caller said as he spoke to a Kettering dispatcher in a recording of his non-emergency call that was released by police. ...
You're following right behind her? While talking on your phone? So you can report her for multitasking at the wheel? Hello?
If you see somebody driving while distracted, feel free to report the culprit. But first, practice what you preach: Pull over.
-
sponsorship
Hey, cell-phone zombie! Wake up! The National Safety Council is trying to pull you over.
The council, a congressionally chartered nonprofit that helped lead the fight for seat-belt use, wants a nationwide ban on cell-phone use while driving. Not just a ban on holding your phone. A ban on using it.
It's about time. Three months ago, Human Nature looked up the research on cell-phone use at the wheel. It's brutal. Even with a hands-free device, talking on a phone can impair driving skills more than intoxication does. Brain scans show the phone conversation sucking the driver's mind from one world into another.
Just last week, a lawsuit in the "texting-engineer" train crash near Los Angeles alleged that the engineer's bosses knew about his texting habit but ignored it. This weekend, I was complaining that the company should have taken driving while texting as seriously as we take driving while drunk.
My complaint has been answered. On Monday, the NSC agreed. Council president Janet Froetscher cited the same flaw in hands-free cell-phone laws: "Even if both hands are on the wheel, your head is in the call, and not on your driving." And she drew the same comparison to alcohol: "When our friends have been drinking, we take the car keys away. It's time to take the cell phone away."
Can a total ban get through the legislative process, politically? It'll be hard, precisely because, as Froetscher notes, 270 million Americans use cell phones, and 80 percent of them use their phones while driving. But the council has succeeded before, and it will do so again, if it can persuade lawmakers and the public to see cell phones in cars the way we now see liquor. "We have been through this before with seatbelts, with drunk driving," says Froetscher. "We do research. When the research demonstrates that something is very dangerous and we can save lives, we educate the public about it."
The insurance industry agrees that a total cell-phone driving ban "makes sense based on the research." The council has also identified a proven mechanism for nationalizing such a ban: Congress can use its highway-construction legislation to financially reward states that pass no-cell laws. And 16 states have set a potentially useful precedent by banning cell-phone use among drivers with learner's permits, intermediate licenses, or both.
To me, the persuasive analogy is alcohol. Intuitively, cell phones in the car seem more justified and less objectionable than booze does, because booze is stupefying, whereas phones are engaging. But the more the phone engages you in its own world, the more it stupefies you in the one you're navigating. Nobody's saying you can't use your phone or your car. Just not at the same time.
-
sponsorship
Remember that train crash near L.A. in September, where the engineer was texting while driving? Twenty-five dead, 130 injured. In three hours of work before the crash, the engineer received 28 text messages and sent 29 more. He sent his last message 22 seconds before impact, just after passing a signal that would have alerted him to the disaster ahead.
Now some of the victims have filed suit. They're alleging that the engineer's bosses were warned about his texting habit. Here's the New York Times summary:
The plaintiffs' lawyers said at a news conference that a co-worker of Mr. Sanchez [the engineer] had told managers ... that Mr. Sanchez frequently used his cellphone while on duty, in defiance of company policy. ... The employee placed at least two calls to managers from July to September, [the plaintiffs' attorney] said. In addition, he said, the employee told him that on a routine inspection two months before the crash, a supervisor caught Mr. Sanchez violating the policy barring engineers' use of cellphones while on duty. Still, he said, the engineer was never punished.
Remember, these are just allegations. They'll have to be tested at trial, if it comes to that. But if they're borne out, let's not make the same mistake Sanchez's superiors allegedly made. Let's take driving while texting—or while phoning—as seriously as we take driving while drunk. After all, as this column mentioned three months ago, research shows that even with a hands-free device, talking on a phone can impair driving skills more than intoxication does.
Alcohol has been around for millennia. Cell phones have not. We evolved to function in the natural world, one setting at a time. Nature has never tested a species's ability to function in two worlds at once. We're now taking that test, and we're flunking it. So here's a message to the 45 states that let people drive while holding a phone, and to the 50 states that let allow driving while talking on a hands-free phone: Sober up.