Feds want nationwide ban on cell phone use in cars

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/federal-safety-board-wants-nationwide-ban-cell-phone-use-cars

by coondoggie • 15 years ago

31 80 15 years ago

andrewpi• 15 years ago

The most noteworthy part, perhaps: "The recommendation includes hands-free and hand-held phones and would go beyond what many states have done to curb texting while driving."

FaceKicker• 15 years ago

At least it's based on science, unlike what most states are doing with banning only handheld phones even though all the research says they're just as bad as hands-free.

edj• 15 years ago

It sounds like they looked at the research instead of the not terribly well thought out state laws. E.g.:

This research examined the effects of hands-free cell phone conversations on simulated driving. The authors found that these conversations impaired driver's reactions to vehicles braking in front of them. The authors assessed whether this impairment could be attributed to a withdrawal of attention from the visual scene, yielding a form of inattention blindness.

Cell phone-induced failures of visual attention during simulated driving. Strayer, David L.; Drews, Frank A.; Johnston, William A. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol 9(1), Mar 2003, 23-32.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xap/9/1/23/

and:

Summary: We used a high-fidelity driving simulator to compare the performance of cell-phone drivers with drivers who were legally intoxicated from ethanol. When drivers were conversing on either a hand-held or hands-free cell-phone, their reactions were sluggish and they attempted to compensate by driving slower and increasing the following distance from the vehicle immediately in front of them. By contrast, when drivers were legally intoxicated they exhibited a more aggressive driving style, following closer to the vehicle immediately in front of them and applying more force while braking. When controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, cell-phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers.

Fatal Distraction? A comparison of the cell-phone driver and the drunk driver. David L. Strayer, Frank A. Drews, and Dennis J. Crouch. Proceedings of the Second International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design.

http://cellphonefreedriving.ca/media/fatal_distraction.pdf

nitrogen• 15 years ago

Would they really ban most modern in-car audio systems? What would they do, force manufacturers to put in a GPS lockout so that the Bluetooth doesn't work while moving in a state that bans hands-free use?

washedup• 15 years ago

Don't they know about autonomous cars?

jerf• 15 years ago

You wouldn't be the "driver" then, would you?

Turing_Machine• 15 years ago

Nevada (the first jurisdiction to officially allow self-driving cars) has, in fact, added an exemption to its cell phone ban for that type of vehicle.

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

The NTSB would probably love if autonomous cars became the norm. The rate of accidents would probably go through the floor, since most drivers suffer from a bad case of survivor bias. They actually talk about requiring more automated safety features (like collision detection for commercial vehicles) in their report.

pavelkaroukin• 15 years ago

I was quite surprised coming to USA to find out that only "text" part from cell phone usage by driver is banned. Unfortunately, human brain is still not evolved enough to be able to concentrate on the road conditions and on the conversation over the phone (for most people I've seen. I bet there are person who handles both simultaneously very well).

Nor autonomous cars are spread enough yet.

So I would say banning phone is good measure for now.

lhnn4• 15 years ago

Let's ban talking and adjusting the radio, lest you face the wrath of prison/thousands of dollars in fines.

jrockway2• 15 years ago

I'm not sure you can argue that these are the same thing.

When you're talking to someone in the car, they can react to traffic and act as a second set of eyes for you. And, you're not struggling to hear them over all the noise injected by our 1990s-era cell phone networks. Finally, passengers in your car do not suddenly ring, giving you only a few seconds to acknowledge something potentially important (distracting you from the road). I've seen people when their phone rings; they go into crisis mode and mentally drop everything until they've answered the phone or decided to ignore the call. When you're driving, you can't do that. And it's something a passenger wouldn't require you to do.

As for the radio; you have the opportunity to adjust it at your leisure, typically without even moving your hands off the steering wheel. It's simply not as distracting as a phone call.

Passengers and the radio are dangerous, but not as dangerous as talking on your phone.

adolph• 15 years ago

How do you know these (other people, radio, etc) aren't as distracting? Is there any research?

funkah• 15 years ago

I think this is fine, because of course it's dangerous, but the same should go for many other activities behind the wheel. Eating, doing your makeup, any kind of reading... cell phone usage is so not the only thing distracting drivers behind the wheel.

latchkey2• 15 years ago

As a driver, motorcyclist and bicyclist, I've lost count of how many times I've been nearly killed by someone txt'ing or talking on their cell phone.

The existing laws (I'm in San Francisco) are completely ignored and unenforced as it is. I see people using their cell phones while driving all the time. I'm sure the cops have better things to do with their days than pull over people talking on their cell phones. As a result, I'm now trained to really watch out for drivers who are on phones because I know they are dangerous and not paying attention.

I feel that even hands-free is distracting to drivers, I know it is distracting for me and I'm a great driver. If I need to use the phone while in the car, I either hand the phone to my wife, I pull over or I just hold off until I get to my destination.

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

I'm sure the cops have better things to do with their days than pull over people talking on their cell phones.

On the contrary, I think the cops should be busting people left and right for that. First of all, driving-while-cellphoning does create a genuine risk for other road users, not just the driver - I live in SF too and entirely agree that drivers here pay no attention to the law. Second, if drivers become aware that chattering or texting on their phone imposes a real risk of being busted and ticketed, then if anything it's likely to make them more cautious about other aspects of their driving.

I think you're looking at it from the perspective that if the police are busting cellphone users, they're not chasing reckless drivers; but that assumes a flattening of both geography and time. As it is, if a cop is there to see you using your cellphone while driving, there's no logical reason to assume that ignoring you increases the cop's chances of detecting other kinds of illegal driving. Usually police are assigned to particular duties, so if a cop is on the traffic beat it's not like s/he is being diverted from investigating murder or robbery by pulling someone over.

latchkey2• 15 years ago

In SF, I doubt that police are ever assigned to pulling people over for cell phone violations. It is usually something like a cop hiding on a side street at the top of Portola late at night waiting for someone to run a red light, which is financially worth a lot more to the city (~$500). The reality is that a cell phone violation is not worth much financially to the city ($20-$50) and drivers ignore the law since it is pretty much just a slap on the wrist. [1]

So, instead of banning the use outright, which a lot of people will object to because nobody likes to be told they can't do something (ignoring the whole driving is a right motto). I'd just say, increase the fines to the level of a red light run and increase the enforcement. The only people who will object to the fines are the people breaking the law. ;-)

[1] http://www.cbdlaw.com/CM/Articles/WirelessFAQs.asp

encoderer• 15 years ago

Banning hands-free is inane. Modern cars integrate hands-free operation very well. In many ways it's easier for me to use my integrated phone than it is the sirius radio.

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

True, but most people don't hold conversations with the radio.

'Yeah, so we should talk about this...hello? hello? Can you hear me now? I think going through a dead spot...how about nCRUNCH'

18pfsmt3• 15 years ago

Personally, I am against rules like this at the federal level, and it scares me how much of a nanny-state the US is becoming. This nation was founded on keeping as many freedoms as possible, from my perspective. It is already punishable by law if you cause an accident (or commit vehicular homicide), and this is just one more reason to pull people over and "check'em out."

Where I live, these laws only apply to people under 18, and we don't have a motorcycle helmet law either.

jrockway2• 15 years ago

Remember, you have no right to drive a car. So you're not losing any rights when the government says you can't talk on the phone and drive at the same time.

If you build your own road network, you don't have to follow any traffic laws. But most people are too cheap to do that, so they deal with a little regulation.

In this case, people aren't capable of making the right decision about cell phone use. They know there is a tiny risk of killing someone while distracted by their phone, but they feel that driving is so safe that it won't happen to them. Unfortunately, "it happens to them" rather frequently now, and a lot of people are being killed or injured unnecessarily. So it's clear that people aren't handling the freedom very well, and it's time to adjust it down to see what happens.

Take the train if you want to txt during your commute.

lhnn4• 15 years ago

It's just another regulation that is impossible to enforce consistently without invasions into one's privacy.

We really don't have many "rights". Most "rights" people talk about are priviledges, like health care, schools, a job, etc.

The real rights we have, such as privacy, free speech, and the permission to own firearms, are being assailed by the government every day.

18pfsmt3• 15 years ago

I simply believe that we already have laws that address the poor driving habits of others. We simply disagree, and that's ok. But, keep in mind some of us live in states with less than 5M people that are quite large; I don't have a commute, and there are very few trains in the Rockies (certainly no commuter trains outside of Denver).

Making more laws that people won't follow (as noted elsewhere in this discussion) just erodes more of our freedoms, but doesn't really protect us anymore. For example, I don't wear my seatbelt.

mindslight14• 15 years ago

> you have no right to drive a car

When roads are the sole form of developed transportation infrastructure in an area that's too sparse or weather-adverse for practical biking, one's right to travel implies a right to drive.

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

It's not a rule at the federal level, it's a recommendation by a federal agency that all states adopt and enforce consistent rules about this behavior which is a known cause of numerous accidents. If you missed this simple distinction that was in every news report on the subject, then I don't think your opinion on regulatory issues is worth very much.

Where I live, these laws only apply to people under 18, and we don't have a motorcycle helmet law either.

Whoop-de-do. Besides thinking that motorcycle users who don't use helmets are semi-suicidal fools, I might point out that wearing a helmet or not has little bearing on the danger a rider presents to other road/sidewalk users; DUI or using a smartphone while driving does.

jameskilton2• 15 years ago

To be somewhat devil's advocate:

There's only so far you can go to try to protect people from being idiots.

There are plenty of data points now that show that texting related accidents and deaths went up when the bans were enacted because instead of doing the sensible thing and NOT texting while driving, these people simply moved the phone into their lap instead of in a place where they could still kind of see the road ahead.

It's an unfortunate fact that people have tendencies to be extremely stupid under the guise of "I can do it, it won't cause me to crash", and no law will fix this.

nknight2• 15 years ago

Your arguments pretty much apply to drunk driving, don't they?

cstross2• 15 years ago

There's only so far you can go to try to protect people from being idiots.

This isn't about protecting people from being idiots; it's about protecting people from idiots.

DUI bans aren't about the drunk drivers, they're about the innocent third parties they kill and maim. Ditto the requirement to hold third-party insurance when driving a vehicle.

I suspect that what's needed is not merely a ban, but a public education campaign to ram this point home. ("Do you want to be maimed by an idiot who can't pull over to answer a text? If not, don't do it to other people!")

BigZaphod• 15 years ago

No, the point is that even if you ban it in order to protect "everyone else", people who insist on being unsafe will find new ways to do so regardless of the law. Banning behaviors is only effective if the ban is actually observed by the people who are most likely to cause the behavior you're trying to ban in the first place.

Edit: And yes, I agree with your last point about a PR campaign. Personally, I'm not convinced we should go about banning every little behavior (especially in cases like this which are effectively unenforceable) but instead spend the resources on education about why a behavior is undesirable, uncool, dangerous, etc.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

>There's only so far you can go to try to protect people from being idiots.

If the only people impacted were the idiots, I'd agree with you. When some 21 year old valley girl kills a 5 year old kid because she was texting, or some 50 year old investment banker runs down a pregnant woman because he was screaming at someone on his cell phone, then it's not just the idiots who get hurt. Government shouldn't protect you from your own stupidity, but it should protect other people from it.

jameskilton2• 15 years ago

Ok didn't expect the rate down. I ask you who did and who've replied, how does this law protect the innocent bystanders? It's still the driver who's doing something stupid, and most of the time they only get caught when things go really really bad.

Do you want roving scan vans on highways looking at every driver on the road for these infractions? Massively increase police presence on all roads (and gl getting anyone to pay for that these days)? Yes the Fed can try to make a full electronics ban, but that won't stop people from using the devices and still causing deaths that shouldn't have happened.

People are selfish by nature. They don't care about how their actions affect anyone else. Trying to put more and more laws in place to try to stop this just leads to societies that have already existed and failed under this massive weight of "there's a law covering absolutely everything you could possibly do".

So really, what is this Fed law going to stop?

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

how does this law protect the innocent bystanders?

By making drivers a bit more paranoid.

Massively increase police presence on all roads

Not needed. Police manage to enforce seatbelt laws quite effectively without any special technology or vast budget increases. It's pretty easy to see when someone is using a cellphone; I notice it all the time without having any special training whatsoever. You could also use evidence of a phone/text conversation as evidence in accident lawsuits, leading to increased damages or charges of criminal negligence where it can be shown that the driver was operating a phone at the time of the accident. This would probably provide an even larger disincentive than issuing tickets: where the action is unlawful, then liability for an accident involving that activity is much easier to prove and win damages for, so the cost of causing an accident becomes much higher and insurers start looking for ways to discourage drivers from engaging in cellphone use too, such as refusing to provide coverage where it is shown that the driver was on the phone. Emergency use would still be available as an affirmative defense.

So really, what is this Fed law going to stop?

It's not a fed law, it's an encouragement to the state governments to pass laws against cellphone use (and similar). If you read the NTSB report (executive summary: http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2011/gray_summit_mo/index.ht...) you'll see that they've anticipated many of the issues you raise and considered the problem in context. Personally, I think the NTSB is one of the best government agencies, along with NIST and a few others which have a strong engineering focus.

gte910h• 15 years ago

There is no reason to ban talking if you don't also ban handsfree use. Studies show it is no less dangerous to use a handsfree device.

My question is: Will states implement a mapping exception?

ghoustonjr2• 15 years ago

Sounds like a bad idea. How would you enforce a ban on the use of hands-free devices while driving?

cstross2• 15 years ago

How do you enforce a ban on drunk driving?

Police patrols identify drivers who're driving erratically, video them if they're holding a handset, then pull them over. If not holding a handset, then (a) it's possible to detect cellphone emissions and pull over those who are driving without passengers, or (b) dangerous driving constitutes Probable Cause for pulling the driver's cellphone usage log to see if it was in use while the vehicle was in motion.

(It's labour-intensive, but it's not rocket science.)

ghoustonjr2• 15 years ago

Wouldn't it be better to forgo the ban on hands-free devices, and instead just direct the police to pull over and ticket people who are driving recklessly? Scanning for cellphone emissions sounds expensive and, as you said, labor intensive. I'm also not sure if that's currently legal.

I suppose I don't want to see the police patrols spending all of their time trying to enforce a ban on this one source of distraction. Instead of ticketing people for engaging in one behavior which makes them more likely to drive recklessly, just go after the people who are driving recklessly.

ekidd• 15 years ago

As described, this has interesting implications for GPS navigation: The NTSB recommendation calls for the ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices for all drivers.

When I'm driving in an unfamiliar city, I often keep my phone in a windshield holder, and leave the navigation display on. This allows me to glance down for an instant, and see the big arrow indicating the direction of my next turn.

Done right, this takes about a quarter second, and it gives me a half mile of warning before changing lanes. This seems like a net safety win, especially around cities like Boston, where last-minute lane changes can be dangerous.

Do the Feds have studies showing that dashboard GPS navigation makes us less safe? I'd love to know one way or another.

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

I very much doubt they want to stop people using GPS, although I might be wrong. The key word here is 'portable'; if you have your phone installed in a holder such that it's in the same place for quick glances, then those glances are no more of a safety risk than the quick glances you take at the speedometer or other dashboard controls.

I think they're less worried about electronic devices as such, than by people futzing with them while they're supposed to be driving. If you set your destination at the beginning of the journey and merely look at the GPS screen occasionally, there's very little cognitive overhead. It's when you have to interact with the device and divide your attention between the different tasks of operating the device UI and operating the vehicle that you become highly distractable.

Qz• 15 years ago

I used to do the glancing down thing, but I found that google voice navigation is good enough at warning me ahead of time that I don't really need to.

mindslight14• 15 years ago

Yippee, another on-high edict completely out of touch with reality. People are just going to end up texting instead, so they aren't using the phone as long..

Does talking while driving divert some of my attention? Of course. But driving on an artificially speed limited controlled-access road (with low traffic) requires a limited amount of attention in the first place (a good chunk spent checking the mirror to avoid being hassled by the standard cop driving 95mph).

coreyo• 15 years ago

Who will care when my Google's self driving car is the norm?

VladRussian• 15 years ago

instead they'd better mandate the ultrasound radar in front of the vehicle, similar to parking sensor in the rear, yet with additional chip that would take the speed (and direction of the turn if any) into account to calculate the distance for sound&visual warning to the driver. A cheap solution to so many traffic accidents i see regularly on my commute on 101.

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

Actually, they did recommend that for commercial vehicles. The NTSB doesn't issue mandates because it's an investigative agency rather than an enforcement one. But none of the news reports include that information because it's boring and doesn't get as many eyeballs.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2011/gray_summit_mo/index.ht...

HeyLaughingBoy• 15 years ago

OK, on the face of it, this a people problem. But "distracted operator" issues have been known about for decades; how do other industries solve them?

How can we apply technology to at least alleviate the problem? Some phones have a speech-to-text mode where you can have texts read to you or you can speak and have it turned into SMS.

What happens when the phone is more integrated with the car? It limits the driver's interaction with it and gives the "system" an opportunity to control when the phone rings (perhaps don't allow it to ring when the car detects it's in stop & go traffic).

Rather than bitching about how "idiots" use their cell phones perhaps we can be more productive in thinking about other solutions to the problem .

mindslight14• 15 years ago

Well, the real problem is the drivers who have poor response times for whatever reason. There's no current good way to judge who is really at fault for an accident, so society devolves into witch hunts against drunk drivers, speeding, cell phones, etc. What about simply recording as much data as possible so driver behavior preceding/during an accident can be reconstructed after the fact?

Such a system mandated by insurance/government (same thing) would clearly be an abomination of privacy/ownership issues, but if it was developed for end-users to help prove their innocence, it could be implemented properly (user-based crypto+open formats+local storage).

anigbrowl22• 15 years ago

Wait, what?

Why do you argue that members of the public or of an insurance pool have no interest in minimizing the economic cost to them of reckless drivers' risky behavior? Sure, if you drive everywhere at 100 mph and we buy auto insurance from the same company, your direct impact on my premium is minimal, maybe a few cents extra annually, because your increased risk is spread out across a large pool of insureds. But risky drivers exist in quantity too, and collectively their impact on the cost of insurance is large, as is the drag they create on GDP or taxes.

Certainly, I think that vehicle telemetry data should be available to defendants in driving-related criminal cases or litigation. And as a matter of fact, it is, via the legal procedure of discovery. You seem to think that this should only be available to the defendant, but never to prosecutors or plaintiffs. Why not? If you're driving on the public highway, then your driving behavior is a matter of public concern to the extent that it impacts others; and to the extent that other people are exposed to the risks arising from your operation of a vehicle, you cannot reasonably claim an expectation of privacy - unless you're willing to move to a regime of strict liability for accidents, and pay correspondingly higher insurance premiums.

tcarney• 15 years ago

We need laws that focus on drivers, not the devices. There are plenty of ways to be distracted while driving. There are also reasonable ways to manage some of these distractions if you understand the risks. Saying "you can't do that" to specific items isn't going to fix the problem, because most people just don't get it. Driver education is severely lacking in the US. Now there's a space where we could use some innovative start ups.

WalterBright• 15 years ago

One possibility is that if you're in an accident, and it can be proven you were on the cell phone at the time, that the presumption will be that you're at fault for the accident. Even more, your insurance would not be on the hook for any claims.

This should be a fair discouragement for the practice.

jws• 15 years ago

It took a decade or so of driving and killing for the first laws against drunk driving to be passed (1910). It took another 20 years (1930s) to really work out what "inebriated" meant in a legal context and set definite limits. Another 30-40 years passed before the "inebriated" limit got refined enough to have its greatest impact (impaired vs. stumbling drunk).

Please pass the law, then in 10 years we can all laugh about how people used to actually drive a car while talking on a cell phone as if that was acceptable!

(Although I hope not to be driving my own car in 10 years. That's robot work. I'll be reading a book or napping until the robot fires the "human attention required" alarm.)

justncase80• 15 years ago

Should just have a nationwide ban on people driving cars. Let google drive us all. As long as people are allowed to drive we'll be killing each other in droves.

beej71• 15 years ago

Does banning cell phone use while driving decrease the number of cell phone-related driving accidents? Are there numbers to back this up?

Feds want nationwide ban on cell phone use in cars

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