Study: Talking to yourself causes 0.0000001% of all accidents reported in the US. (okay, that’s not real, but it really could be.)
I’ve been reading a lot of news regarding a nation wide ban on talking on the cell phone while driving. According to Yahoo! news a US group (the National Safety Council) is calling for a complete ban of talking on the cell phone. Some states have already adopted the need for using a hands-free device while driving, but the NSC is calling for a more drastic law.
Living in California, last year we experienced a new law requiring drivers to use a handsfree device and this year a new law is prohibiting any form of ‘texting’ while the vehicle is in motion.
Now, there are many benefits from these new laws to protect drivers and pedestrians (for instance, a Metrolink train driver who caused a massive accident a few months ago was cited to have been texting while operating the train); however, a complete ban of talking on the cell phone is completely unnecessary.
Here is what NSC argues:
The group said cell phone use contributes to 6 percent of all crashes, referring to a study by the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis. That represents 636,000 crashes, 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths each year, plus a financial cost of $43 billion, the NSC said, citing the Harvard study.
Okay, 6 percent of all crashes, that is significant, however, I am very curious how many crashes occurs when there are more than one person in the car. Here me out on this…
Typically, a person uses the phone while driving because they are bored, they are sleepy, they need to catchup on something, or they have an important message for someone at work or at home. The conversation might be really long or really short, regardless, they are being distracted and they are not paying 100% attention to the road.
Okay, I wonder what’s the percentage of people who get into car accidents who have more than one person in the car. Or how many accidents occur when people are listening to music or arguing with the passengers?
My point is simple. You can simply be chatting with the person next to you and that might be enough to get you into a car accident. I’ve had heated arguments in the car that made me miss my exit. Heck, I’ve been bumped by another driver who was simply listening to her music really loud and it distracted her enough to rear end my car. (When she got out of the car to access the accident I could her her radio on at FULL blast.)
Unless you isolate the driver from any type of distraction I think it is somewhat pointless to have a complete ban on cell phone use while driving. And unless there is significant study that states show the different types of activities that occur when there is an accident, I wouldn’t be too quick to pass a nationwide law prohibiting the use of cell phones.
Let’s not come into a conclusion on this one yet, but please take into consideration the bigger picture of what are causing accidents. More likely than not, any type of distraction to the driver will increase those chances.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Good point. That 6% figure is very subjective. Because I would be sure that if we eliminated cell phone usage there would not be an immediate drop of 636,000 accidents a year. Better data would be to compare if there was a significant increase of accidents between the years where cell phones were in and not in use. Also what is the total number of people driving and using their cell phones? Because comparing cell phone accidents to all accidents it not fair when data should be comparing cell phone accidents as a percentage of all drivers using cell phones. For instance, there are about 196 million registered drivers. Let’s say 50% use cell phones while driving, that’s about .6% (636000/ 98000000) accident rate, which is very very low as a statistic.
I’m not a big fan of this hands-free law. I feel like there’s a greater chance of me getting into an accident looking for the hands-free device than if I just picked up the phone and talked. Plus I have friends, and even myself on occasion, who turn the phone to speaker phone mode and yell into it. Does that REALLY make for safer driving?