has AMA or any organization endorsed banning mobile phone use while driving?

[tallman]

Ban cell phones in ALL public places.

I'm tired of being subjected to second hand cell phone conversation.

In the car, if an accident or violation occurs whilst; intoxicated, under the influence of, using an electronic communication device, radar detector/jammer, eating, drinking, reading, writing, taking pictures, posting pictures, knitting, or any other non-driving behaviour, the driver should be terminated.

That is all.

New company with technolgy that detects cell phone uese when driving.

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video link

http://www.hwstusa.com/video.html

link to individual state cell phone legislation

http://www.hwstusa.com/Legislative_Bills.htm

[90%angel]

In the car, if an accident or violation occurs whilst; intoxicated, under the influence of, using an electronic communication device, radar detector/jammer, eating, drinking, reading, writing, taking pictures, posting pictures, knitting, or any other non-driving behaviour, the driver should be terminated.

That is all.

 

Careful, you're starting to sound like Russell!

 

But, I will say this: you're saying you've never ever ever ever ever ever ever even once for a second been distracted by something while driving/riding?

 

If yes, you're probably the only driver left that won't be terminated.

 

(Not that I am advocating distracted driving, I'm just saying we've all been there.)

[Mike]

I think what we come back to is that drivers who talk on cell phones cause a disproportionate number of accidents.

 

I'm not sure you can back that up:

 

This study ranked cell phone use as the # 6 cause of accidents.

 

This article notes that cell phone use ranks #8 as the cause of accidents.

 

When you compare those raw numbers to the very high percentage of people who drive and yack on their phones, you could conclude that it's not a very serious problem at all. Of course, I'm sure that there are also studies concluding that cell phone use while driving is among the most reckless of habits.

 

I don't know that singling out cell phone use as the one behavior to be prohibited while driving makes any sense. There are myriad other acts--reading, adjusting mirrors, changing radio stations, fiddling with GPS units, and even talking to passengers--that strike me as equally fraught with peril. Given the benefits associated with cell phone use and the fact that it arguably presents less of a danger than a whole laundry list of other things, is it the only one of these dangerous activities that we should prohibit?

[tallman]

Lisa,

Never said the I word.

I got tired of my map blowing up into my lit cigar catching the map on fire, so I got a talking GPS.

I got tired of people telling me where to go, so I got a cell phone hooked into the Autocom so I could tell them where I was.

I can talk on the phone, listen to music, change direction based on the audio GPS, look up lodging and call for a room while simultaneously giving them my credit card number, with the best of them.

Some people don't need anything to become distracted. Their own brain pattern does it for them.

[Dave McReynolds]

I'm not sure you can back that up:

 

This study ranked cell phone use as the # 6 cause of accidents.

 

This article notes that cell phone use ranks #8 as the cause of accidents.

 

When you compare those raw numbers to the very high percentage of people who drive and yack on their phones, you could conclude that it's not a very serious problem at all.

 

The first hit I pulled up contained this quote: "Motorists who use cell phones while driving are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves." A later quote in the same article was, "However, cell-phone use is far less likely to be the cause of a crash or near-miss than other distractions, according to the study." I'm not sure how to reconcile the two.

 

However, I have a strong suspicion from all I've read and my own experiences that people tend not to be aware that they are distracted until it's too late. And, all evidence, including the ones you cite, indicates that distractions, whether cell phone or other, cause a lot of accidents.

 

So what do you do to avoid something you can't stop once it starts happening?

 

First, perhaps, an increase in awareness would be in order? This is a tough order. I'm sure that all new student pilots are made well aware of the history of pilots landing with their gear up. What do you think the odds are that it will never happen again? Look at our highly esteemed Russell, who believes he can pick and choose the times he will allow himself to be distracted, and admits he has missed freeway exits because his mind was on something else, but denies that he could ever be distracted whenever anything important is about to happen. Do you think the pilots who landed gear up felt the same way? I'm sure the Air Force would be happy if you could come up with a way to increase awareness, and considering how much we would all miss Russell if he turned out to be wrong, I'm sure we all would be happy too.

 

Second, remove the source of the distraction.

 

I'm out of ways. Do you have a third way?

[steveknapp]

Dave, if I follow your logic with the pilot analogy, distraction is inevitable. Highly trained pilots can't avoid it. So nor can anyone else.

 

I'd agree.

 

But then, even if you remove cell phones...isn't there still the issue?

[russell_bynum]

So what do you do to avoid something you can't stop once it starts happening?

 

Evaluate the situation before you implement the distraction, and decide if you can tolerate the reduced awareness.

 

I'm not going to be talking on the phone when I'm trying to slice through heavy stop/go traffic, but buzzing along on the open road with very light traffic? Why not?

 

Look at our highly esteemed Russell, who believes he can pick and choose the times he will allow himself to be distracted, and admits he has missed freeway exits because his mind was on something else, but denies that he could ever be distracted whenever anything important is about to happen.

 

A cell phone is just like any other distraction. When you look down to change the temperature on your AC, do you believe that nothing dangerous could possibly happen during that moment of distraction? No...of course not. You evaluate the situation, estimate how the distraction will impact you, and decide if the odds are in your favor or not.

 

And sometimes you'll be wrong.

[Dave McReynolds]

But then, even if you remove cell phones...isn't there still the issue?

 

I think removing the source of the distraction helps. Fortunately for me, a few missed freeway exits and other lapses didn't result in any accidents, but did convince me that as soon as the cell phone conversation required me to think, I lost a certain amount of focus on my driving. A similar thing occured with my ex-wife, who had a way of asking me questions like whether I had remembered to pay the utility bills as I was teeing up my golf ball that also made me lose a certain amount of focus on my driving. So there will be sources of distraction coming at us from unexpected directions, which we have to try to eliminate as we can. Not using the cell phone in the car eliminated one source of distraction for me, a divorce eliminated the other.

[leikam]

The first hit I pulled up contained this quote: "Motorists who use cell phones while driving are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves." A later quote in the same article was, "However, cell-phone use is far less likely to be the cause of a crash or near-miss than other distractions, according to the study." I'm not sure how to reconcile the two.

 

How about this:

Cell phone use: x4

Rubbernecking: x40

[Ken H.]

Why is a cell phone worse than any other 2-way conversation?

 

I don't recall where I saw it, but I did hear about a fairly recent study that looked at cell-phone use v.s. passenger-driver converations (it was probably on NPR last year). They found that drivers were less distracted by the "live" conversation than the call. The researchers attributed this to the fact that the passenger can see the same driving conditions as the driver and tends to pace the conversation more appropriately than a caller who has no road context.

I suspect that's getting pretty close to the core of it. Your mental 'focal point' (not sure exactly what the right word is) is different when carrying on a personal conversation (in a car or otherwise) vs. when on a phone conversation. In the former it is more in the 'here and now' where you are, in the latter your mental focal point is away from here and now, displaced to the perception point of the other party, the one you are conversing with.

 

Most of us could type a reply here and carry on a conversation with our SO, or watch a TV program. But try to do it while carrying on a phone conversation is a much more difficult task.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the human mind is not capable of multi-tasking. Only capable of doing a task, interrupting it, for however brief of a moment even, then returning to the prior one. But always with some loss of response time and efficiency while it reestablishes where it was on the prior task and resumes it.

[tobyzusa]

Contrary to popular belief, the human mind is not capable of multi-tasking.

 

Clearly, you have not met my wife.

[duson]

Hand held cellphones are banded in cars while driving in Austalia.