Dan Weber:
It might be that the social pressure against phoning while driving makes driving worse, because people who are driving are trying to pretend that they are not.

For that matter.. if someone is going to send text messages while driving, is it safer that they do it while holding their phone in the 9-3 position in plain sight or tucked under the steering wheel while occasionally glancing up at the road? And which behavior would a reasonable person, not a legislator, think would be encouraged by a ban on a use of handheld devices?

Oren: I would have to proactively contact my customers to give them a new number at which I can be reached as soon as I know about the malfunction. [ Background, I work on-call technical support for some ecommerce divisions. Every hour of downtime costs us tens of thousands of dollars. Most calls are not important, some are. That’s why I answer them briefly to ascertain and make arrangements to CALL BACK in the appropriate timeframe. Jeez. ]

Among other things, I provide some of the same services. Some of the calls I answer are business-stopping issues. For example, “help, none of our cash registers work” or (from financial services businesses) “we have to pay our clients today, but the checks aren’t printing properly!”

In short if I don’t answer a call from some of my clients, I had better have a darned good reason. In some cases, major problems can occur if I miss a call, and in all cases, I do my absolute best to make sure that any major incidents are resolved as quickly as possible (usually within one hour, but hopefully within fifteen minutes if possible).

In some cases, I can’t address something from the road. In that case, I need to discuss the situation with the customer, look at all options (referrals, whether I can provide sufficient guidance to customer’s technical staff or other support personnel, what time I can get to work on it, etc).

Oren: Or, you announce at the beginning of the conversation that you are driving and thus cue the caller to understand that he cannot expect your full attention.

I think a lot of people don’t have that much common sense. Not sure that banning it for all is the right answer; maybe we need to get across to people that “talking on the phone while driving” is much different than the sum of “talking on the phone” and “driving.”

As you accelerate down the onramp to the busy freeway, your passenger is likely to notice what’s going on and pause the conversation until you are safely merged. A caller on the other end of a phone line doesn’t get those cues.

Or, you announce at the beginning of the conversation that you are driving and thus cue the caller to understand that he cannot expect your full attention.

If your cell phone malfunctions, will you be immediately fired and/or killed?

I would have to proactively contact my customers to give them a new number at which I can be reached as soon as I know about the malfunction.

[ Background, I work on-call technical support for some ecommerce divisions. Every hour of downtime costs us tens of thousands of dollars. Most calls are not important, some are. That's why I answer them briefly to ascertain and make arrangements to CALL BACK in the appropriate timeframe. Jeez. ]

Driving drunk may be “intrinsically wrong” but using a cell-phone while you are driving is certainly not

pot meet kettle: why? not the cellphone part, but why do you think driving drunk is “instrinsically wrong”?

Part of the disconnect comes from the imprecision of the terms. I doubt anyone would argue you are negligent and morally culpable if you drive when you are actually functionally impaired, that’s what people think of when they hear “driving drunk”, but functional impairment is testable state, usually recognizeable by breaking one or more existing traffic laws and confirmable by failing an actual physical field test.

BAC’s, however handy they are as a “quick and dirty suggestion of impairment, are designed around averages and don’t take into account personal tolerance. There are folks who will pass any cognitive or reaction-based test you can think of at higher than .08 (or even .10). Yet they are subject to arrest and conviction based on that subjective number if stopped at a “safety checkpoint” even if they have not violated, and are statistically no more likely than an utterly alcohol-free person to violate, any actual driving-related traffic regulation.

Further, the neo-prohibitionists’ emotionally-driven modern moral crusade against the demon rum has long since run off the path of reasonable good intentions and led to such nonsensical (and ascientific) statements as “if you drink (implicit any amount of alcohol), don’t drive”.

Enforce existing driving-related traffic laws vigorously and test for impairment (not arbitrary BAC, actual field test impairment) as necessary after establishing real PC for a stop . Then if we want to punish the voluntarily chemically impaired or negligently distracted (reading, makeup, texting/phone use), more severely, go ahead.

Brian K:
it must be nice where you live never to have to get on the freeway to go anywhere. but where i live i (and thousands of others based on the extent of traffic) have to take the freeway to get to school, work, costco, the gym and my girlfriend.

Ok. Then define it as “Open Highway” and “Outside of city limits.”

inside city limits, no talking on the cell phone, listening to the radio, or unnecessarily talking to passengers…

Chris Travers: Or you could say, “Cell phone use permitted on open freeways and not in residential neighborhoods.”

it must be nice where you live never to have to get on the freeway to go anywhere. but where i live i (and thousands of others based on the extent of traffic) have to take the freeway to get to school, work, costco, the gym and my girlfriend.

JMA: Speaking on a cell phone is not significantly more dangerous than speaking to oneself–unless one is in the habit of actually listening to the person on the other end of the call, which I think we can all agree is pretty unusual.

I want to know if speaking on a cell phone is more dangerous than:
1) Listening to a REALLY INTERESTING and engrossing talk radio program
2) Doing a cd-based foreign language course where you repeat after the person on the CD.
3) Listening to educational lectures
4) Going through likely meeting material in one’s head

Moreover, if all of these are a problem, and everyone thinks we REALLY need to ban cell phone usage, then why not borrow the techniques used in aviation and require cabin voice travel data recorders in all cars, and require a sterile cabin except on freeways……

Brian K:
That depends entirely on the proportion of drivers on the road who are driving 1200 miles a day vs. those that are driving short distance to and from work and errands. i think it would be obvious that the latter far outnumber the former. therefore you would need to see a very large increase in safety for long distance drivers to offset even minor decreases in safety for everyday short distance drivers.

Or you could say, “Cell phone use permitted on open freeways and not in residential neighborhoods.”

Pintler: You and a passenger are having a conversation. As you accelerate down the onramp to the
busy freeway, your passenger is likely to notice what’s going on and pause the conversation until you are safely merged. A caller on the other end of a phone line doesn’t get those cues.

Maybe. However, unnecessary conversation between a pilot and copilot has been judged to be the cause of more than one major airplane crash. Is there anything which makes a car better in this regard? I doubt it. In fact, I can think of all kinds of reasons why it should be less of a problem in an airplane, starting with the fact that the copilot can step in and control the plane if necessary. And indeed, there was a near crash a few years ago at Logan Airport where two ATC’s gave two planes runway clearance on intersecting runways, where the quick thinking of the copilot saved the day.

JMASeems most haven’t kept up with developments in licensing laws which require that drivers in training not have passengers so they can’t be “nattering” to the fellow in the next seat.

Teenagers already have a poor sense of risk assessment. This isn’t so bad if they are hunting a tiger on the savannah, but it is if they are controlling a 1-ton piece of machinery down the road at 50 mph.

Teenage drivers are bad, not just from inexperience but also from being teenagers. Adding teenage passengers just compounds the bad risk assessment. Adult passengers are fine; they are actually encouraged. It’s not the “nattering,” it’s having other immature people in the car.

Speaking on a cell phone is not significantly more dangerous than speaking to oneself–unless one is in the habit of actually listening to the person on the other end of the call, which I think we can all agree is pretty unusual.

Okay, did I miss the irony boat?

Speaking on a cell phone is not significantly more dangerous than speaking to oneself–unless one is in the habit of actually listening to the person on the other end of the call, which I think we can all agree is pretty unusual.

No. There is no way any of this is getting repealed. I think the comments here are sufficient evidence to convince me of that.

“Odd. The beatings have not yet raised morale. Hit them harder!”

Mark M: “Yankee” has it exactly right.It’s the distraction of the conversation, not the holding of the phone in the hand that causes accidents.I would like to see some research as to why conversations with persons physically present in the same vehicle do not present similar distraction issues.

My personal theory (that I haven’t been able to prove) is that people talking on the phone in the car are caring too much about not being rude to the person on the other end of the phone. They insist on paying attention to what the other person says and not asking them to repeat themselves, and the sometimes spotty reception that cell phones have cause people to pay even more attention.

Meanwhile, if a person is in a car next to me, we still can use body language (even if I’m not looking at them) to convey information, and it is easier to listen. And if something deserving attention happens on the road in front of us, the person sitting next to me is not going to insist on talking through it. They will stop talking, or understand if I stop talking.

It might be that the social pressure against phoning while driving makes driving worse, because people who are driving are trying to pretend that they are not.

“Yankee” has it exactly right. It’s the distraction of the conversation, not the holding of the phone in the hand that causes accidents. I would like to see some research as to why conversations with persons physically present in the same vehicle do not present similar distraction issues.

You and a passenger are having a conversation. As you accelerate down the onramp to the
busy freeway, your passenger is likely to notice what’s going on and pause the conversation until you are safely merged. A caller on the other end of a phone line doesn’t get those cues.

Secondly, conversations while driving tend to be a bit desultory – you’re talking to pass the time, not conduct business (IMHE; there are of course exceptions). Some phone conversations may also be to pass the time, but to the extent people are trying to conduct actual business, I would expect the phone conversation to command more of your attention budget than a pass-the-time conversation about the Dodgers.

Oren:
I should have clarified — there are people that I cannot refuse to take during normal hours.

If your cell phone malfunctions, will you be immediately fired and/or killed?

Just curious.

The only problem with these economics wags is that their precious economic theories are contradicted by statistics. Accident and death rates have declined steadily since the invention of the automobile. Things like safety belts, safety glass, abs, radial tires, better suspension, handling and air bags, don’t make people more reckless–it makes them better drivers and reduces accidents and deaths on the highway.

What are you? An emergency neurosurgeon? On the launch crew of a nuclear missile? A double-nought spy? If so, you shouldn’t be driving around when you are on duty. Otherwise, I suspect you have an overinflated sense of your importance to society.

Driving drunk may be “intrinsically wrong” but using a cell-phone while you are driving is certainly not

why? not the cellphone part, but why do you think driving drunk is “instrinsically wrong”?

Actually, this might be true. The author of Traffic states that roads that are planned to be safe have far more accidents than roads that are deemed ‘unsafe’ by traffic engineers. It’s because when you are driving and you think that the road is safe, you are more careless in your attention, whereas unsafe roads (or driving conditions) make you more alert.

You can if your cell phone is turned off until you reach your destination.

I should have clarified — there are people that I cannot refuse to take during normal hours. And by take I mean inform them that I’m unavailable and when I will be calling them back is just simple courtesy. Most of the time, they don’t talk at all — I answer the phone and say “Sorry, busy right now, I’ll call you at 1:15″ and they know enough to hang up (or say “Make it 2:15 bye”).

If you seriously have a problem with this (as opposed to the people yammering away about groceries and band practice) then you have a serious problem assessing relative scale.

Chris Travers: Imagine driving 1200 miles in a day without listening to the radio, engaging in no unnecessary conversation, not drinking coffee while driving, etc. Would this be more safe or less?

That depends entirely on the proportion of drivers on the road who are driving 1200 miles a day vs. those that are driving short distance to and from work and errands. i think it would be obvious that the latter far outnumber the former. therefore you would need to see a very large increase in safety for long distance drivers to offset even minor decreases in safety for everyday short distance drivers.

David McCourt: Perhaps my locality is very different from the four studied, but here, in Chicago, my own experience is that I see no decline, marked or otherwise, in the use of cell phones following the (unenforced) ban on their use here.

I’ve lived in chicago for the past 3.5 years and i didn’t even know there was a ban on cellphones while driving.

anecdotally, i just spent a few months in california which i know was very vocal about their ban. despite this, cellphone usage was nearly identical to that before i moved some 4 years ago. it may even have increased because i saw a lot of people with bluetooth headsets…but i couldn’t tell if they were actively using them or just didn’t remove them from their ear from an earlier call.

so i would say, from my experience, is that lack of enforcement and knowledge of the laws is the main reason why there is no change in accidents since before the bans.

You can if your cell phone is turned off until you reach your destination. Anyone, this side of Janet Napolitano, can manage this (and her cell phone appears to be permanently off, anyway). Everyone, from the CEO of Goldman Sachs to the Solicitor General, to . . . you and me, has a “boss” or bosses, clients or customers. But it’s pure vanity to think that one’s own affairs are so urgent that one must always be available to take a call, day or night. I believe that’s what my dogs think, on the other end of the leash.

So, whether or not accidents are more likely, I’d still like to see cops hammer these folks with tickets.