Talking & Driving - Should it be illegal?

I have many times hung up on a hands-free phone conversation because I needed to concentrate on driving in traffic.

I also believe that holding a cell-phone to ones ear is inherently more dangerous than the actual talking (ever try to hold a phone to your ear and shift at the same time?).

I agree with Jim, though... this clearly falls under careless driving/reckless endangerment.

 

I never gave much thought to driving and cell phones before I started commuting to work on my bike. Realizing that the operator of the vehicle bearing down on you is on the phone and seemingly oblivious to your presence on the roadway is a scary prospect. Not that they would be paying any more attention without the phone, but there is just something unnerving about the transported gaze of a driver on the phone.

 

As steviet points out, there is ample evidence that hands-free is just as bad as handheld. A large majority of the distraction is caused by trying to hold this conversation, not by holding onto the phone. As such, these laws are ridiculous since they're not addressing the very issue that they are supposed to address (i.e. driver distraction).

There is an important difference between having a conversation with someone on a cell phone and having a conversation with someone in your car: if the person is in your car, they have a good sense of the driving situation and understand when they need to stop talking. Next time you're in a car with someone, pay attention to the effect that the traffic situation has on the conversation. If you're driving on a highway or a low-traffic road, the conversation will flow as normal; as soon as you are looking to merge onto the highway or make a turn onto a busy street, the conversation will pause temporarily. If you're on the other end of the phone, you have no idea what the current traffic situation is, so you can't modify your conversation accordingly.

 

Just yesterday I delivered a car to a woman that walked into our dealership with an insurance check in her hand. She was wearing a neck brace and was in obvious pain. She was hit by someone that was talking on a cell phone and oblivious to a stop sign. T-bone. She didn't hesitate to mention that the officer that helped her said that the Toyota she was driving may have saved her life.

The new laws in many states are legit. Just because a driver isn't impaired by alcohol doesn't mean they're not impaired.

...Just MHO

 

While thats a horrible situation, was it caused because the driver was talking on his cell phone, or because he was involved in a distracting activity while driving? It goes back to a point i made a few pages ago - it's not talking on a cell phone thats bad. What is bad is when you are distracted by other things (talking on a phone, texting, changing the radio, changing a CD, changing a playlist on your iPod, etc). But levels of distraction vary - one person may be completely capable of driving appropriately while doing one of the above activities, while another may not. Should they both be fined if a cop sees them doing it? Or should they be fined when the cop sees them driving in an irresponsible manor while performing them?

As i said before, don't fine people just for the act of using their cell phones - some people can function effectively while talking. Instead, the use of a distracting device (as listed above) can be used to increase the fine when something else happens. And we shouldn't just be fining people. If you're involved in an accident because of your cell phone, it should be a fine, loss of license, and required proof that you have a hands free device installed in the car before you can get the license back.

 

I understand your point. Unfortunately, we're reaching the time where states are not going to give you a vote. Think of Bluetooth as the breathalizer for the cell phone generation. The 250lb man may have the tolerance to drive after three drinks. Another may not. Regardless, both are breaking the law.

 

First, I don't believe using hands-free is as bad as using hand-held phone during driving. The former driver still has hands to using signal when needed, the latter can't!!!
I often find drivers who don't use signal to be the ones on hand-held phone. Don't tell me changing lane w/o signal makes no difference in causing accidents.

Second, about law enforcement. If a law can't be enforced, it is a bad law. How does a cop cite a driver making hand-free phone call? It is hard for a cop to tell the difference from outside the vehicle. On the contrary, it is much easier for a cop to spot a drive with one-hand holding cell phone next to one's ear.

I am all for the law. It is not perfect, but we have to start some where. Now, let us move on to the tailgaters (as someone has said in previous post).

 

While reasonable, that is just an assumption. My friend was able to eat, drink, talk, and drive a stick without any problems.

The purpose of traffic laws is mainly keep the public safe. We already have laws fro speeding, reckless driving, impeding traffic, etc. Do we really need a law to cover a specific distracting behavior when there are laws that cover the results of that behavior? How many speeders, tail gaters, and lane cutters are going past the cop who pulled over the reasonable driving guy on a phone?

 

Here in Connecticut this law has been in force for a couple of years, yet everyday I see dozens of people happily chatting away as they meander in and out of thier lanes and drive slower than anyone else. I have never heard of anyone getting a ticket for it. I believe that the police do not enforce it unless it has been causal in an accident. If a call is that important then pull over. It is only a law if people obey it and it is enforced.

 

You can believe it or not believe it; it won't change reality (see the earlier link to the study that said that this was the case). While only driving with one had is likely to be marginally more dangerous, it's not the primary danger with cell phones; distraction is. After all, no one's talking about banning manual transmission cars (which require you to take one hand off the wheel at certain times).

 

Talking on the phone (hands free or not) is what I call "zombie driving". Their eyes are open, but they aren't taking anything in. The study hit upon this, and I'm glad. I really would have liked them to correlate it to a brain monitoring study, to show how different parts of the brain are engaged. Actually, I recall reading a study exactly like that, and the conclusion was that talking on the phone (hands free or not) was extremely detrimental to one's driving performance.

Zombie driving is dangerous/lethal to cyclists because cyclists (more than anyone else, even more than pedestrians) rely on drivers paying attention to the road and to the enviroment around the roadway.

Texting on a phone, reading a book/magazine/essay while driving is just plain stupid. I won't mince words on that.

Edit - Through the amazing thing that is the Internet and Google, we have, this!

http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home05/jun05/yantis.html

Basically, they say you have a finite ability to see and hear. Devote more attention to hearing, and you have less attention to seeing. I call this.......Zombie driving.

 

Oh non believer....would you like it if someone did a study to determine if this were truly the case? Well, you are in luck....

Waves magic wand (powered by Google) and recite the words, Brain Activity Cell phone driving

Driving while using 'hands-free' cell phone still dangerous: study

This also hypothesizes why talking with people in the car is "different" than on the phone.

 

You identify them the same way it has been done before cells phones, you pull them over and ticket them for driving infractions. There are already laws for speeding, weaving, crossing lines, and driving too slow. Let the cops enforce those laws against actions that directly endanger the public as opposed to ones that only potentially endanger. Just add a increased penalty for people caught doing the directly endangering, if they were also doing the potentially at the time.

 

its a law in Wa against both here and its a good one. studies showed that 60% of accidents in Wa State with drivers under 25, the driver had sent or received a text within 2 minutes of the time the accident happened.

now considering that some people text as many as 10,000 times a month (some as high as 25,000!) maybe its a concidence or so much texting that it happens within a few minutes of ANY awake event.

 

as far as me... well been using BT headset for almost 3 years. on my 3rd pair (the first one's quality was to put it bluntly...unusable~!!) when i am talking and need to concentrate on driving. i just stop... and yes i may either ask them to wait. or repeat...

nothing wrong with that and if you feel that there is something wrong with that, do not take calls while you are driving.

 

Amen to that! They are either on a cell phone or they're from Maryland (sorry, my anti-MD bias had to get out).

 

Nice to see the discussion of this topic here.
As someone who does experiments in this area let me offer a couple of points to consider:
Hands-free and hand-held cell phones are both distracting (hand-held are slightly worse)
Cell phone conversations (both types) increase your probability of being in a crash by about 400% (the same as driving at 0.08 BAC).
Cell phone conversations are different than conversations with passengers because of: a) conversational suppression a knowledgable passenger stops talking as the car approaches a potential hazard; b) improved situation awareness (passengers often alert drivers to hazards ahead by saying "watch out for that car"); c) intelligibility, passengers are easier to understand because of voice fidelity, body language, etc (when its difficult to hear a cell phone drivers often shut their eyes to hear harder).

Cell phone conversations are dirrerent than other in-car distractions like radios, food, etc because conversations are continuous externally paced activities (there are lots of social reasons to keep listening and responding to a conversation). Other sorts of distractions are self-paced and discrete, you can start them when you think you have time or spare mental capacity, and you can stop them anytime you like.

Cheers,
Samiam

 

Very nice synopsis! That was my understanding from my brief exposure to the memory load and distractions literature.

I will admit that I still will use bluetooth while driving, although when traffic conditions are conducive and the conversation is light. Even, then I have noticed that I often will pause talking (or listening) when changing lanes or going through intersections or give my talkee a heads-up. 95% of the time it is my wife, so I think she understands the pauses and need for repeating. Which might address some of the differences between cell phone distractions and other distractions. I honestly think I (or the central executive) allocate less "attention" on the conversation than driving, although I should ask her about that to see. Isn't rationalization great?

 

Yeah, most drivers swear that cellphone conversations don't impair their driving -- although they can point to lots of times they've seen bad behaviour from other cell-phone talking drivers.

There's two reasons for this. First, because we're paying attention to the conversation and not our driving, we usually don't realise how bad our driving has gotten. Second, the main effect of cellphone distraction is on our reaction time to hazards, usually our lane position and speed maintenance is sort of OK (because that part of driving is proceduralised - aka auto-pilot).

When I playback drivers' performance in our simulator they are always amazed at how bad their driving became, even they didn't notice it at the time.