Research on cell-phone-use-while-driving quashed by feds
You’ve seen it done.
You’ve done it yourself.
And you probably know that it’s dangerous.
However, research compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and now released thanks to a lawsuit documents the high risks involved in using the cell phone while driving. (We won’t even go into texting, which tanks the danger to whole ‘nother level.)
According to the New York Times:
The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002….
The research mirrors other studies about the dangers of multitasking behind the wheel. Research shows that motorists talking on a phone are four times as likely to crash as other drivers, and are as likely to cause an accident as someone with a .08 blood alcohol content.
The three-person research team based the fatality and accident estimates on studies that quantified the risks of distracted driving, and an assumption that 6 percent of drivers were talking on the phone at a given time. That figure is roughly half what the Transportation Department assumes to be the case now.
The Times reports that the data in question were available back in 2003, but officials at the Department of Transportation blocked public release, fearing the agency would draw punitive action by congressional budget committees and criticism by the cell phone industry.
Rather than risk getting people angry, the federal agency charged with highway safety chose to just keep quiet about it, ignoring the fact that its silence probably contributed to the deaths of hundreds of people a year. Even now, the data are becoming available only because outside groups filed lawsuits forcing its release.
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181 comments Add your comment
N-GA
July 21st, 2009
7:37 am
People complain that young drivers are unsafe because they are distracted by others in the car. It’s people’s refusal to accept the obvious that allows cell phone use by drivers. That and the lobbying efforts of cellular phone companies who cringe at the thought of lost revenues.
Turd Ferguson
July 21st, 2009
7:37 am
SHUT UP and DRIVE!!
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
7:40 am
I’m texting this while drriving 80 mph on 400 right now! Weeeeeeeeeee!!! Get outta my way!!!!!!
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
July 21st, 2009
7:42 am
Count the number of times you’ve been forced to avoid a collision because some one was yakking away.
Then draw your own conclusions.
~~~~~
In response to these non-problems, the government implemented “affordable housing” policies that cost us dearly. Sowell fully subscribes to the argument that the Community Reinvestment Act, intended to extend mortgage lending to underserved minorities, encouraged banks to lend to high risk home buyers, many of whom later defaulted. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, fulfilling a federal mandate, purchased and repackaged billions and billions dollars’ worth of subprime mortgages that later dragged the two giants under, and the rest of the financial industry with them.-AmSpec
Now they want health care and energy.
Wonder what those crashes will look like?
Is there a bottom?
Trust me
July 21st, 2009
7:43 am
I saw a lady applying eye liner while driving down the road. I instinctively put as much distance as I safely could as quickly as practical. As for the doubling of that 6 percent, I don’t buy it. It’s probably closer to 3 to 4 times higher now. Anyway, the best way to cut back on such dangerous usage is to just take away their minutes.
Normal
July 21st, 2009
7:46 am
Just turn the darn thing off when you get in your car, and turn it on when you get where you are going…chances are nobody has called you anyway…
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
7:47 am
I Report, maybe we go back and look at your warnings about rising gas prices leading up to the 4th of July holiday? Your warnings and fearmongerings are all hot air. (Yeah, we’ve had 8 years to figure out how the fearmongering approach works.)
USinUK
July 21st, 2009
7:48 am
Everytime I go home to Atlanta, I’m shocked all over again to see just how many people think they can blow through an intersection one hand on the phone, one hand on the wheel.
But this makes no sense: “the agency would draw punitive action by congressional budget committees and criticism by the cell phone industry”. The article states “The former head of the highway safety agency said he was urged to withhold the research to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who had warned the agency to stick to its mission of gathering safety data but not to lobby states.”
BUT THAT’S THEIR JOB!!! They’re supposed to come out with recommendations on highway and traffic safety!! That’s like telling the CDC to continue monitoring the swine flu but not to release any information on it that will help people make better decisions.
criminey – I always knew the GOP was anti-science when it comes to climate change — I didn’t know it was so bad that they don’t want people to know just how dangerous their own behavior could be.
(just as fyi: it’s illegal here in the UK to use a cellphone that isn’t hands-free)
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
7:49 am
Honestly, Jay, I’d have been shocked if a Bush DoT hadn’t suppressed such research.
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
7:50 am
Your warnings and fearmongerings are all hot air.
The next time Andy’s prediction is correct will be the first time.
(remember how our little troll would sign off his messages with “You’re going to hate ‘08″? Good times!)
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
7:51 am
Andy, do you have any phony quotes to serenade us with today?
Normal
July 21st, 2009
7:53 am
A few years back, when I had to travel 285 east for work, I saw a dude in a high dollar BMW, talking on the phone, reading something and trying to sip coffee at the same time. When he pulled in behind me, I tapped my brakes, downshifted and took off. Looking through the mirror,
I saw cell phone, coffee and papers flying, and the BMW standing on its nose has he had both hands on the wheel, thinking he was dead. Mean? I know, but it was a blow for the little guy who rarly gets to stick it to anybody. And just so’s you know, I’d do it again, if I get another chance…
carly
July 21st, 2009
7:55 am
Seems that was the way of the previous administration, climate change, cellphone use and who knows what else. Corporations 1 public 0. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
7:56 am
“Of course, those opposed to higher taxes will say that these are the very people who invest, hire and keep the economy going. So raising their taxes will burden the economy and hurt those who are supposed to be helped. But there’s no reason to suppose that taking a tiny sliver of the incomes of the top 1 percent will reduce all that much of their economic ardor. If a surtax makes affordable health care possible for a larger number of Americans, who will then be able to stay healthy and productive, the positive effect on the American economy is likely to be far greater.”
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
7:57 am
Jay, I think “hundreds” of deaths is seriously understating things, by the way.
(I can understand the hedging and the “probably” but come on. with around 37K fatalities per year, the number directly attributable to wireless-doodad use in a given year is surely more than 1/37th.)
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
7:57 am
Ooops, that quote is Robert Reich:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/should-the-rich-pay-for-the-uninsured/
Curious Observer
July 21st, 2009
7:59 am
I wish that some people would abandon the notion that it’s the removal of one hand from the steering wheel that causes accidents during cellphone use while driving. It’s the distraction of concentrating on a cellphone conversation that causes most such accidents. Using a hands-free device accomplishes practically nothing in reducing cellphone-related vehicle accidents.
I see these chatterers all the time while I’m driving. Their minds are in another world–they are gesturing, laughing, etc.–but they have little awareness of their traffic situations.
While I’m all for individual freedom, there’s a need for curtailment of that freedom when it comes to endangering others. The only way to eliminate cellphone-related motor vehicle accidents is to ban cellphone use while driving.
Doggone/GA
July 21st, 2009
7:59 am
“When he pulled in behind me, I tapped my brakes, downshifted and took off.”
Next time, just turn your lights on and then off quickly. Anyone not paying attention as “well” as that guy is not going to figure out it was your lights coming on and not your brake lights.
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
8:01 am
Somebody go grab Ralph Nader and get him on this.
Maybe we make all new car roofs out of some type of metal that blocks signals?
Peadawg
July 21st, 2009
8:02 am
Normal @ 7:53
That’s hilarious. I would have done the same thing.
ByteMe
July 21st, 2009
8:02 am
Curious: ever try to dial a phone number on your cell phone while driving? It’s not the one hand, but the part where you take your eyes off the road for a split second. That’s why playing with the radio, fiddling with the a/c also cause lots of accidents.
Doggone/GA
July 21st, 2009
8:03 am
“Maybe we make all new car roofs out of some type of metal that blocks signals?”
Too easy to bypass…all it would take is an external antenna
ByteMe
July 21st, 2009
8:03 am
Normal: where do I send the car cleaning bill?
j/k.
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
8:05 am
BUT THAT’S THEIR JOB!!! They’re supposed to come out with recommendations on highway and traffic safety!!
that’s sooooooo reality-based of you.
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
8:07 am
Well, Norman Mineta, Sect of Transportation 2001-2006, was a Bush appointee.
So, it all makes sense doesn’t it?
The ant-science and anti-anything-that-is-anti-big-business folks concealed alot more than just cell phone wreck statistics.
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
8:11 am
the part where you take your eyes off the road for a split second. That’s why playing with the radio, fiddling with the a/c also cause lots of accidents.
I believe another issue, here, is the speed with which new wireless technology has advanced, compared to that of car audio and climate control systems.
With a car stereo, you get somethign that changes perhaps once every (on average) four, five years or so–about as often as a typical American changes car. More often for some, less so for others.
Whereas Wireless Doodad with Triple Doppler Coverage Rev. 6.3 has some added feature that requires a LOT more of your time to focus on and complete any given task, no matter how automated and intuitive they’ve engineered it. And you get Rev. 6.4 next week.
In short, I suspect people just flat-out look down a lot more than they used to, and they aren’t owning up to it. Fatality rates have flattened out, probably, because of all the marvelous technology in even many of the cheapest cars these days (side air bags, ABS) covering any number of sins, but they can only cover so much.
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
8:14 am
Finn @ 8.01–
Sooner or later
You’re gonna listen to Ralph Nader…
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
July 21st, 2009
8:15 am
No, I don’t, DB, the Vietnamese beat us on the battlefield fair and square, their glorious armies pummeled us, their air superiority was devastating to our efforts, the very thought of the pounding their Navy put on us makes me cringe with fright, yeah, the pinko media had nothing to do with our defeat, sure thing.
Redneck Convert
July 21st, 2009
8:15 am
Well, I come up with a idea to get rid of all the danger caused by people that use cellphones while they drive. I done it all myself. I didn’t even need my buddy Jim Earl to help. Tax them and use the money to build diffrent roads for them. Don’t let them on the highway with the rest of us. Let them kill and maim each other all they want. Heck, the state might could make some money by selling tickets to allow the rest of us to watch them crash. Sort of like a NASCAR race. You could have bleachers along the parts of their highway where they crash the most.
When I was a kid I use to read the Dick Tracy cartoon strip in the paper. Dick Tracy had a watch that let him talk to other people. Most of us just saw that watch as a fancy tool that would never be real. You couldn’t talk to other people without having a phone with a cord. Now we got millions of Dick Tracy’s just chatting away. Except they use a little phone instead of a watch. Nobody ever dreamed these people could be more dangerous than a rattlesnake. They get behind the wheel of a two-ton car or truck and don’t know they’re in this world. You might as well let 6 year olds drive.
Anyhow, it’s about time the guvmint come out with what most of us already knowed. You need to give cellphone users about 500 yards in each direction when they’re on the road.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. Have a good day everybody.
Turd Ferguson
July 21st, 2009
8:22 am
“In response to these non-problems, the government implemented “affordable housing” policies that cost us dearly. Sowell fully subscribes to the argument that the Community Reinvestment Act, intended to extend mortgage lending to underserved minorities, encouraged banks to lend to high risk home buyers, many of whom later defaulted. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, fulfilling a federal mandate, purchased and repackaged billions and billions dollars’ worth of subprime mortgages that later dragged the two giants under, and the rest of the financial industry with them.-AmSpec”
PRECISELY!!!
Every program govt with which govt becomes involved turns into a complete debacle. Those who really want healthcare will obtain the necessary employment. Those who really dont care well they wont because and AS USUAL, they are the lazies, bums of the bunch.
They that dont want to work for things are kinda like Ted Kennedy to being President. Ted Kennedy doesnt want to be President he just doesnt want anyone else being President…The lazies/bums dont really want healtcare they just dont want anyone else having it.
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
8:24 am
Andy, while you’re busy not owning up to the lies you’ve spread, any other straw men you’d like to beat up for us this morning?
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
8:24 am
Due to the new hazards of drivers with cell phones and increasing incidence of accidents….wait for it….
We should have universal healthcare.
Finn McCool
July 21st, 2009
8:29 am
Turd wrote: Every program govt with which govt becomes involved turns into a complete debacle.
Is it my turn to address these silly comments?
OK, I guess the US military is a complete debacle
-So is out police force
-So are our library systems
-Our post office does a miserable job – heck, they only deliver the mail 6 days a week. There are 7 days in the week! Hello!
-Our trasportation systems, our FDA, our CDC, our EPA…all a bunch of wasted money.
Gandalf, the White! (AKA Grand Pooh Bear!)
July 21st, 2009
8:31 am
Normal: I salute you for you service to the drivers of 285! Way to go! Oh, I do that almost every day!
TGT
July 21st, 2009
8:31 am
I just hope this doesn’t lead to a call for more laws against cell phone use while driving. I do believe that cell phone use while driving (and certainly texting) is distracting, but I’m not so sure that it isn’t more distracting than other practices.
In January of this year the president and chief executive of the NSC, Janet Froetscher, likened talking on cell phones to drunken driving, while adding that hands-free phones are just as dangerous as hand-held ones. “It’s not just what you’re doing with your hands — it’s that your head is in the conversation and so your eyes are not on the road,” Froetscher said.
So having a conversation on a hands free device is more distracting than having a conversation with someone present in the back seat? I don’t think I buy that. What about kids in the back seat? Any parent (especially if you have multiples) with small children knows how distracting they can be.
Also, what about traffic alerts or Captain Herb’s “traffic troopers?” And Levi calls and Amber alerts? Our cell phones can also play a role in safety on the roads as well.
Anyway, I hope than there is no one like this on the road. (It’s a little long, and in two parts, but it is worth it!)
Gandalf, the White! (AKA Grand Pooh Bear!)
July 21st, 2009
8:34 am
We need flying cars!
Gandalf, the White! AKA "King of the Wild Frontier"
July 21st, 2009
8:35 am
OR raise taxes and make everyone ride public transportation!
Gandalf, the White! AKA "King of the Wild Frontier"
July 21st, 2009
8:35 am
I know! We could get some device that blocks Cell Phone Signals, like a radar detector, and sell them!
Trust me
July 21st, 2009
8:36 am
We should all have chauffeurs… named James, in order to ease the transition to a new chauffeur, when needed, of course. It’s the only way to drive hands-free.
Kayaker 71
July 21st, 2009
8:37 am
There can be other significant distractions while driving although I haven’t had one for awhile now. And in those days, we didn’t even have cell phones.
USinUK
July 21st, 2009
8:39 am
GtG –
flying cars? hitting someone else on the ground is bad enough … hitting someone else then plummeting 100′ to your death …???
Gwinecian –
“that’s sooooooo reality-based of you.” I know, I know … what was I thinking …
TF –
“Every program govt with which govt becomes involved turns into a complete debacle.”
this was completely debunked yesterday. find a new (useless) argument.
Normal
July 21st, 2009
8:41 am
Guys and gals…and Jay,
This is way off subject, but does anyone know anything about “votingbloc.org”? I just checked my email and they sent a thing
about someboby being on the Colbert Report. The reason I ask is I recently sent two nastygrams to Isakson, and Chambliss. I don’t want to be on a mailing list from anything to do with those two. Help me out.
Thanks
Normal
July 21st, 2009
8:42 am
Trust Me, your 8:36 Think of all the jobs that would open up too…
Turd Ferguson
July 21st, 2009
8:43 am
Programs and agencies are two different things. Must I do all the thinking for you?
However I will agree somewhat on the DEA being obsolete.
“Legalize it
Dont criticize it Mahn
And I’ll advertise it…”
Joey
July 21st, 2009
8:43 am
Research by National Highway Traffic Savety Administration just released shows:
*Researchers estimated cellphone use.
*Three-person research team based fatality and accident estimates on other studies.
*And on an “assumption” of phone use. This assumption is about half of what the Transportation Department “assumes” is the case now.
It is intuitive any distraction increases the chances of making a mistake, when driving, or working or blogging. We all know that, but I can do this one thing. But is this research? Frankly I agree with the NHTSA. I would not want this assumed and estimated data release under my name as though it is a researched study.
We have had hundreds of news reports, news articles and commentaries and even legislation regarding restriction of the use of phones over the last few years. Like smoking while driving or smoking anytime, we know there is a risk. No way this un-researched data would change that knowledge.
I do suspect that this data is more reliable than the IPCC data on Man-Made-Global Warming.
DB, Gwinnettian
July 21st, 2009
8:43 am
So having a conversation on a hands free device is more distracting than having a conversation with someone present in the back seat? I don’t think I buy that.
Valid point if the “someone present” isn’t aware of the traffic and surroundings (say, a <1 year old). Less so if they are.
However, it is necessary to ferry young’uns hither and yon. Checking email and MLB scores, not so much.
AmVet
July 21st, 2009
8:45 am
“I always knew the GOP was anti-science when it comes to climate change…”
USinUK, last night PBS aired For All Mankind, a magnificent documentary about the Apollo missions and the greatest technological achievement in human history – the lunar landings.
I was again amazed and proud at how quickly we mastered Kennedy’s commitment to send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth by the end of the decade.
And I wondered how ANY American could not be?
Yet we read here yesterday conned after conned either blowing it off entirely are taking it for granted and being completely disinterested, disdainful or unimpressed.
I guess it was the wrong kind of shock and awe for them. Their loss. And to this day that same inexplicable enmity for scientific discovery still poisons their flat earth worldview where NASA is their and their god’s new enemy.
But still trying to “win” the Viet Nam war?
So very sad…
DB, as a late in life Nader Raider, I found that reference very funny!
Gale
July 21st, 2009
8:47 am
How many times have you been rear-ended by someone on a cell phone? Twice for me. Multi-tasking is not safe while driving.
USinUK
July 21st, 2009
8:50 am
AmVet –
DANG … as much as I love the BBC, I do miss a good PBS documentary (although Channel 4 does some killer ones here, too). They did a 4-part documentary on NASA in the month leading up to the moonwalk – absolutely fascinating … and awe-inspiring.
And, yes, it does make you want to throttle the “limited government/it’s only here to regulate commerce and provide a military” numpties.
AS far as whether we lost VN because of Walter Cronkite or because of Congress or because of the commie/pinko draft dodgers (like Bush, Cheney and Limbaugh), I just wish they’d make up their mind. One day, it’s the media. The next, it’s the Dems. the day after that, it’s the protesters … but, then, that’s their answer to everything, “it’s someone else’s fault!!!”
RW-(the original)
July 21st, 2009
8:52 am
Normal,
It sounds more like you were jealous of the “high dollar BMW” than you were about the distracted driver. How would you have felt if he swerved rather than slammed the brakes and killed a mini van full of “little guys?”
BD,
Minetta was a Clinton holdover.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Withholding this report is nearly as bad as delaying the mid July release of the budget numbers until mid August so you can try to force the health care debacle down our throats before we know how badly your other programs have failed. Or wait…no it isn’t. States and cities have been grappling with this cell phone situation for years with no ned of a report from the feds.
For what it’s worth I’m generally very Libertarian on these things but I would ban all use of cell phones by drivers whether handsfree or not. I drive a lot and not a day goes by that I don’t see somebody oblivious to the road while talking away on the cell phone in their hand or into the air with a blinking roach on their ear.