I think the best hope is to get the information out and make use of market mechanisms. For example, everyone is increasingly aware that in a liability case about an auto accident, cell phone usage by a driver would be treated as relevant and would be bad for the driver. As a result, many companies have imposed bans on their employees using cell phones in company vehicles. This isn’t driven by a law banning the practice: The companies don’t want to be on the wrong end of a big judgment. Or suppose that someone developed an in-car cell phone jammer, and auto insurance companies offered discounts for cars which were so equipped.

About handsfree: I work in the phone industry, and I’m also expert in the nature of human language (BA and MA in Linguistics). As some people have noted already, a person in the car is less distracting than a person on the phone, because the person in the car is also aware of the driver’s immediate environment and that affects his/her behaviour. But there is another factor that most people are not aware of: All telephones transmit only about 1/5 of the auditory information that we can actually hear. Consequently, a vast amount of the redundancy that is built into human language is lost. This forces our brain to work much harder to analyze and decode the message. We are not consciously aware of this, but I am confident that it takes brain resources away from whatever else we are doing — such as driving.

1. Ban hand held devices.
2. People buy hands free devices.
3. People now have hands free devices and this makes talking easier and new toys are fun.
4. You have more people talking while driving which is the real problem.
5. More accidents.
6. Since people have both hands on the wheel now (in theory) this mitigates 5 resulting in no statistically significant change in the rate of accidents.

You’d need to disentangle these different effects which can be hard to do.

Absolutely, this has nothing to do with safety, none of the so-called rules ever do, they are nothing but a money grab and gives the police a reason to pull someone over. If it was about safety, then as Michaelk42 |has stated there would be harsher penalties for all distracted driving not just the ones that make the news that politicians beat the drum on. E.G. You run a red-light and kill someone you are likely to get at worst a manslaughter conviction, you run the same red light after having a drink and some DA may try to convict you for murder. In either event, person dead, in one instance they will say if you were sober you could’ve avoided the collision, yet in either case a person is dead and would you really care if the person who did it was sober. I think not!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html

Enforcement of cell phones are probably easier than just choosing to prosecute recklessness, as some advocate. “Recklessness” is a much more subjective standard and more likely to lead to police abuse.

It shouldn’t be surprising. Insurers may in many cases be complete assholes who skirt the borders of illegality when it comes to paying out claims, but on the risk mitigation side their incentives align very nicely with ours and they are pretty much on the side of the angels. Case in point, you can (if you are a small manufacturer) get a free consultation with an insurance company rep, who will offer recommendations on how to make your workplace safer. They don’t want to pay workman’s comp claims any more than you want to see an accident.
In the case of this study, it doesn’t surprise me that insurance companies would want accurate information on the effectiveness of these measures. If nothing else, it would inform their decisions on how to spend their lobbying budget.

The thinking is that a passenger sees what is going on in the car, knows when to pause, knows when to let the driver concentrate on something, but a cell phone conversant doesn’t.

Not sure that I completely buy this, but I can understand why they might make the case.

We did some studies on this in my lab in grad school. Yes, that’s exactly how it works.

Allowing hands-free devices makes these bans useless. Ditto for failing to enforce the bans. Those two factors account for the ineffectiveness of the bans.

Does this constitute a sufficient argument against the bans? Probably, in practical terms.

In general, I agree with the motorcyclist above: it’s easy to spot drivers on cell phones, because they’re the most reckless drivers on the road. OTOH, I saw an old guy in a Lexus zip down a city street while reading a book the other day. What’s the solution to bad drivers? I’m generally in favour of harsh punitive measures for anyone whose distraction contributes to an accident, but even that policy will be underinclusive: many bad drivers create dangerous road conditions without actually being directly involved in any resulting accidents. This is a huge problem (in terms of number of deaths per year, it outstrips “terrorism” and other violent crime by several orders of magnitude) with no easily enforceable solution. My only strong feeling on the issue is that the punishments dished out when somebody gets caught red-handed (DUI, talking on a cell phone behind the wheel, or any other form of voluntarily undertaken impairment resulting in an accident) should be extremely severe: lifelong revocation of driving privileges should be the bare minimum sentence.

Back on one of the previous threads where Radley linked to a little spy cam review, I ordered one of those cameras, mostly as kind of a toy. Today I clipped it to the sun visor in my car and pointed it out the windshield for the drive to work. I suppose I might forget about it if I did it routinely, but I found myself driving more carefully since, by recording my driving, I was essentially providing evidence against myself if I caused an accident.

I might add that, since it picks up sound, it also makes you more self conscious of cussing about some news story you’re listening to on the radio….

Not sure that I completely buy this, but I can understand why they might make the case.

I especially like that LaHood brings up the study that found distracted drivers are worse than drunk drivers… but doesn’t bring up that it found drunk (exactly .08 blood alcohol) drivers are no worse than sober ones.

Comedy gold. Of course, in a properly ordered society, we only release the results of studies that support the conclusions the government has already reached.

I remain highly skeptical of claims that using a hands-free phone is more distracting than a human passenger that you can, you know, take your eyes off the road to look at.