

Feds want nationwide ban on cell phone use in cars - coondoggie
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/federal-safety-board-wants-nationwide-ban-cell-phone-use-cars

======
latchkey
As a driver, motorcyclist and bicyclist, I've lost count of how many times
I've been nearly killed by someone txt'ing or talking on their cell phone.

The existing laws (I'm in San Francisco) are completely ignored and unenforced
as it is. I see people using their cell phones while driving all the time. I'm
sure the cops have better things to do with their days than pull over people
talking on their cell phones. As a result, I'm now trained to really watch out
for drivers who are on phones because I know they are dangerous and not paying
attention.

I feel that even hands-free is distracting to drivers, I know it is
distracting for me and I'm a great driver. If I need to use the phone while in
the car, I either hand the phone to my wife, I pull over or I just hold off
until I get to my destination.

~~~
anigbrowl
_I'm sure the cops have better things to do with their days than pull over
people talking on their cell phones._

On the contrary, I think the cops should be busting people left and right for
that. First of all, driving-while-cellphoning does create a genuine risk for
other road users, not just the driver - I live in SF too and entirely agree
that drivers here pay no attention to the law. Second, if drivers become aware
that chattering or texting on their phone imposes a real risk of being busted
and ticketed, then if anything it's likely to make them more cautious about
other aspects of their driving.

I think you're looking at it from the perspective that if the police are
busting cellphone users, they're not chasing reckless drivers; but that
assumes a flattening of both geography and time. As it is, if a cop is there
to see you using your cellphone while driving, there's no logical reason to
assume that ignoring you increases the cop's chances of detecting other kinds
of illegal driving. Usually police are assigned to particular duties, so if a
cop is on the traffic beat it's not like s/he is being diverted from
investigating murder or robbery by pulling someone over.

~~~
latchkey
In SF, I doubt that police are ever assigned to pulling people over for cell
phone violations. It is usually something like a cop hiding on a side street
at the top of Portola late at night waiting for someone to run a red light,
which is financially worth a lot more to the city (~$500). The reality is that
a cell phone violation is not worth much financially to the city ($20-$50) and
drivers ignore the law since it is pretty much just a slap on the wrist. [1]

So, instead of banning the use outright, which a lot of people will object to
because nobody likes to be told they can't do something (ignoring the whole
driving is a right motto). I'd just say, increase the fines to the level of a
red light run and increase the enforcement. The only people who will object to
the fines are the people breaking the law. ;-)

[1] <http://www.cbdlaw.com/CM/Articles/WirelessFAQs.asp>

------
ekidd
As described, this has interesting implications for GPS navigation: _The NTSB
recommendation calls for the ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic
devices for all drivers._

When I'm driving in an unfamiliar city, I often keep my phone in a windshield
holder, and leave the navigation display on. This allows me to glance down for
an instant, and see the big arrow indicating the direction of my next turn.

Done right, this takes about a quarter second, and it gives me a half mile of
warning before changing lanes. This _seems_ like a net safety win, especially
around cities like Boston, where last-minute lane changes can be dangerous.

Do the Feds have studies showing that dashboard GPS navigation makes us less
safe? I'd love to know one way or another.

~~~
anigbrowl
I very much doubt they want to stop people using GPS, although I might be
wrong. The key word here is 'portable'; if you have your phone installed in a
holder such that it's in the same place for quick glances, then those glances
are no more of a safety risk than the quick glances you take at the
speedometer or other dashboard controls.

I think they're less worried about electronic devices as such, than by people
futzing with them while they're supposed to be driving. If you set your
destination at the beginning of the journey and merely look at the GPS screen
occasionally, there's very little cognitive overhead. It's when you have to
interact with the device and divide your attention between the different tasks
of operating the device UI and operating the vehicle that you become highly
distractable.

------
pavelkaroukin
I was quite surprised coming to USA to find out that only "text" part from
cell phone usage by driver is banned. Unfortunately, human brain is still not
evolved enough to be able to concentrate on the road conditions and on the
conversation over the phone (for most people I've seen. I bet there are person
who handles both simultaneously very well).

Nor autonomous cars are spread enough yet.

So I would say banning phone is good measure for now.

------
18pfsmt
Personally, I am against rules like this at the federal level, and it scares
me how much of a nanny-state the US is becoming. This nation was founded on
keeping as many freedoms as possible, from my perspective. It is already
punishable by law if you cause an accident (or commit vehicular homicide), and
this is just one more reason to pull people over and "check'em out."

Where I live, these laws only apply to people under 18, and we don't have a
motorcycle helmet law either.

~~~
jrockway
Remember, you have no right to drive a car. So you're not losing any rights
when the government says you can't talk on the phone and drive at the same
time.

If you build your own road network, you don't have to follow any traffic laws.
But most people are too cheap to do that, so they deal with a little
regulation.

In this case, people aren't capable of making the right decision about cell
phone use. They know there is a tiny risk of killing someone while distracted
by their phone, but they feel that driving is so safe that it won't happen to
them. Unfortunately, "it happens to them" rather frequently now, and a lot of
people are being killed or injured unnecessarily. So it's clear that people
aren't handling the freedom very well, and it's time to adjust it down to see
what happens.

Take the train if you want to txt during your commute.

~~~
18pfsmt
I simply believe that we already have laws that address the poor driving
habits of others. We simply disagree, and that's ok. But, keep in mind some of
us live in states with less than 5M people that are quite large; I don't have
a commute, and there are very few trains in the Rockies (certainly no commuter
trains outside of Denver).

Making more laws that people won't follow (as noted elsewhere in this
discussion) just erodes more of our freedoms, but doesn't really protect us
anymore. For example, I don't wear my seatbelt.

~~~
mindslight
I agree with most everything you've said. Also, the local PD has put up one of
those feel-good-do-nothing 'BUCKLE UP IT'S THE LAW' blinking signs about 0.2mi
from my driveway, so I've made a routine of preemptively shutting the car off
and unbuckling just because I can.

However, just please be aware that not wearing a seatbelt can easily turn a
20mph walk-away accident into a fatal one. Despite the stupid laws surrounding
them, buckling up isn't a bad habit to develop.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Despite the stupid laws surrounding them, buckling up isn't a bad habit to
develop._

Have you considered that the point of these 'stupid' laws is to save the
_public_ the expense of emergency medical care/roadside cleanup for non-
seatbelt-wearing people who end up flying through the windscreen or pinballing
around inside the vehicle? The government is not very interested in your
private behavior, it's interested in minimizing the risk your behavior
presents to others - both directly (DUI or cellphone bans) and indirectly
(through the financial impact of accidents on the public purse).

~~~
mindslight
Given that the cost to the public is much much less than the cost to the non-
seatbelt-wearing person, I don't think it's very relevant. You've got to draw
the line somewhere, otherwise such everything-affects-something reasoning can
be used to justify anything.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, but your comparing the collective with the individual there. You have to
consider the aggregate cost of non-seatbelt-wearers to the public, _ie_ the
cost of all avoidable injuries resulting from nonuse of a seatbelt within a
given jurisdiction, and including the opportunity cost of death or ongoing
medical treatment as well as the direct costs.

~~~
mindslight
Except you then divide the total cost by the number of people that bear it,
and the term cancels out. Your reasoning implies that two governments merging
justifies an increase in the number of restrictions simply because the numbers
are bigger.

~~~
anigbrowl
'the public' _is_ the group of people that bear the cost. And no, it doesn't
cancel out; the cost of avoidable accidents to the individual members of the
population is small, but not that small. AAA (which is in the sinsurance
business, admittedly) estimates, based on Federal Highway Administration data,
that fatal accidents cost about $6m on average, and that the total cost to
Americans is >$1500 per person per year: [http://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/2011_AAA_...](http://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/2011_AAA_CrashvCongUpd.pdf)

This is actually a great study - comprehensive, rigorous, and quite recent.
The overall estimate of accident costs is just shy of $300bn/year, which is
something like 1% of GDP. Even if we assume only 1/10th of fatal accidents
involve innocent victims of careless drivers - probably somewhat low - that's
still a substantial burden on the economy, which the public has a collective
interest in mitigating.

~~~
mindslight
I was trying to compare the expected societal cost from one person driving
without a seatbelt, to the actual cost to the victim in one instance, which
seems wrong in retrospect. Honestly you took me back with that $6M number. But
then I looked into it, and 98% of that is "work-loss costs", which are clearly
borne by the victim. The actual costs to the rest of the group are nowhere
near this amount (roughly $120k), while the victim is sacrificing $6M of self-
value. The victim is by far the loser, so the idea that the victim somehow
externalized his costs and cheated society is preposterous!

~~~
anigbrowl
So if I mow you down, you're choosing to sacrifice your future income by
getting in the way of my vehicle? Interesting theory.

~~~
mindslight
I was talking specifically about those who choose not to wear seatbelts and
then go on to become victims of their own decision.

I think we're somewhat talking right past one another on that more-
philosophical thread. I'll respond there tomorrow.

~~~
anigbrowl
ok, or gmail me if you prefer.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
OK, on the face of it, this a people problem. But "distracted operator" issues
have been known about for decades; how do other industries solve them?

How can we apply technology to at least alleviate the problem? Some phones
have a speech-to-text mode where you can have texts read to you or you can
speak and have it turned into SMS.

What happens when the phone is more integrated with the car? It limits the
driver's interaction with it and gives the "system" an opportunity to control
when the phone rings (perhaps don't allow it to ring when the car detects it's
in stop & go traffic).

Rather than bitching about how "idiots" use their cell phones perhaps we can
be more productive in thinking about other solutions to the problem .

~~~
mindslight
Well, the real problem is the drivers who have poor response times for
_whatever_ reason. There's no current good way to judge who is really at fault
for an accident, so society devolves into witch hunts against drunk drivers,
speeding, cell phones, etc. What about simply _recording_ as much data as
possible so driver behavior preceding/during an accident can be reconstructed
after the fact?

Such a system mandated by insurance/government (same thing) would clearly be
an abomination of privacy/ownership issues, but if it was developed for end-
users to help prove their innocence, it could be implemented properly (user-
based crypto+open formats+local storage).

~~~
anigbrowl
Wait, what?

Why do you argue that members of the public or of an insurance pool have no
interest in minimizing the economic cost to them of reckless drivers' risky
behavior? Sure, if you drive everywhere at 100 mph and we buy auto insurance
from the same company, your direct impact on my premium is minimal, maybe a
few cents extra annually, because your increased risk is spread out across a
large pool of insureds. But risky drivers exist in quantity too, and
collectively their impact on the cost of insurance is large, as is the drag
they create on GDP or taxes.

Certainly, I think that vehicle telemetry data should be available to
defendants in driving-related criminal cases or litigation. And as a matter of
fact, it is, via the legal procedure of discovery. You seem to think that this
should only be available to the defendant, but never to prosecutors or
plaintiffs. Why not? If you're driving on the public highway, then your
driving behavior is a matter of public concern to the extent that it impacts
others; and to the extent that other people are exposed to the risks arising
from your operation of a vehicle, you cannot reasonably claim an expectation
of privacy - unless you're willing to move to a regime of strict liability for
accidents, and pay correspondingly higher insurance premiums.

~~~
mindslight
My second paragraph wasn't trying to be philosophical, just what I see as the
practical outcomes. If developed for the end user _before_ becoming de facto
mandated, there's a much better chance that it would be a system with some
notion of privacy between independent actors. A court would have to request
the relevant records of the accident rather than getting weeks worth of data
ripe with circumstantial evidence. (Whether a defendant can refuse this
request is irrelevant, eventually withholding the data while the other party's
data shows reasonable actions would be viewed in a negative light)

What would such a system look like if developed by insurance companies? I'm
guessing it would contain a cell modem that would continually upload as much
data as possible to the insurance company. They'd then datamine that looking
for 'dangerous' drivers and charge them more, even if they have less
accidents.

Who would you rather have in your insurance pool going forward - someone who
speeds everywhere with no accidents, or someone who drives under the speed
limit yet has managed to total their car twice in the past year? There's no
answer to that - my point is that we just don't _really_ know who the bigger
risk is a priori despite much effort, so the game-changing goal should be
better analysis after the fact.

~~~
anigbrowl
Mindlsight, I don't think you have even the haziest idea of how criminal
prosecutions or lawsuits work. Courts rarely request anything; prosecutors or
plaintiffs make requests _through_ the court, which can be contested by the
defense, and the defense can seek records in turn (like the disciplinary
record of an arresting officer, for example, or the records of equipment
calibration in a DUI case etc.).

 _There's no answer to that - my point is that we just don't really know who
the bigger risk is a priori despite much effort_

What do you think insurance actuaries do all day, other than study insurable
risk? Read your insurance policy if you have one, they can and will raise your
premium if you have a history of accidents. Honestly, you seem kind of
paranoid. Insurers want to reduce risk, but still keep their product cheap
enough for people to buy it.

~~~
mindslight
I do know how legal discovery generally works, there just wasn't much point
getting into specifics when it doesn't change my point. Fundamentally, the
court is what has the power to make requests, even though those requests
originate from opposing counsel.

> _What do you think insurance actuaries do all day, other than study
> insurable risk?_

This is precisely what I meant by 'much effort'.

Let's make this concrete: If you frequented a lot of bars as a designated
driver and the insurance companies gained access to your location data, what
do you think would happen to your rates? How do you think this change compares
to the change that would occur if they could somehow perfectly predict your
expected payout?

And actually, yes, I am paranoid and proud of it. The corner cases of systems
are the _important_ ones; expected behavior is dead easy.

~~~
anigbrowl
_If you frequented a lot of bars as a designated driver and the insurance
companies gained access to your location data, what do you think would happen
to your rates?_

Nothing, because my location data doesn't tell you whether I'm a driver or a
passenger. Even if the insurance companies do have that information, your
example depends on their being oblivious to the existence of designated
drivers. I might, for example, be operating a taxi or limousine service, where
my job is to drive drunken people around while they have a good time.

I'm all about corner cases, but it does not follow that paranoia is the
sensible position to take. I can just as easily suggest corner cases where
insurance companies decide to skip the analysis, increase premiums on everyone
evenly, and blame inflation, because it considerably lowers their overhead and
the administrative savings offset a good deal of the increased payouts, so
that the premiums don't rise too much. Unsustainable over any period but the
very short term, of course, but many would argue that something very similar
happened at AIG in the runup to the financial crisis. Not performing proper
diligence on the financial instruments whose risk they were insuring against
(via credit default swaps) looked like financial genius until the claims
suddenly exceeded the value of the premiums. That's why it's cheaper to pay
actuaries than to place your faith in people's common sense.

There are different interests to be balanced here, but it seems to me you are
complaining about the existence of the scales (ie the court).

~~~
mindslight
The location data of the insured vehicle certainly indicates the context that
it operates in. The commercial vehicles you cite have different insurance
policies. And letting your friend drive your car home from the bar is
presumably an even higher risk behavior! If you honestly think that an
insurance company wouldn't raise the rates for something that correlates so
strongly with drunk driving, you're really going to need some solid
justification.

And as to the scales, one must recognize that they're imperfect. One is in a
much worse position with a log of habitual speeding - having to then prove
(from a presumption of guilt) that their speed was indeed prudent.

~~~
anigbrowl
Now you're just using a 'no true scotsman' fallacy to exclude cases that don't
fit your argument.

------
andrewpi
The most noteworthy part, perhaps: "The recommendation includes hands-free and
hand-held phones and would go beyond what many states have done to curb
texting while driving."

~~~
edj
It sounds like they looked at the research instead of the not terribly well
thought out state laws. E.g.:

 _This research examined the effects of hands-free cell phone conversations on
simulated driving. The authors found that these conversations impaired
driver's reactions to vehicles braking in front of them. The authors assessed
whether this impairment could be attributed to a withdrawal of attention from
the visual scene, yielding a form of inattention blindness._

Cell phone-induced failures of visual attention during simulated driving.
Strayer, David L.; Drews, Frank A.; Johnston, William A. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol 9(1), Mar 2003, 23-32.

<http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xap/9/1/23/>

and:

 _Summary: We used a high-fidelity driving simulator to compare the
performance of cell-phone drivers with drivers who were legally intoxicated
from ethanol. When drivers were conversing on either a hand-held or hands-free
cell-phone, their reactions were sluggish and they attempted to compensate by
driving slower and increasing the following distance from the vehicle
immediately in front of them. By contrast, when drivers were legally
intoxicated they exhibited a more aggressive driving style, following closer
to the vehicle immediately in front of them and applying more force while
braking. When controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, cell-phone
drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers._

Fatal Distraction? A comparison of the cell-phone driver and the drunk driver.
David L. Strayer, Frank A. Drews, and Dennis J. Crouch. Proceedings of the
Second International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment,
Training and Vehicle Design.

<http://cellphonefreedriving.ca/media/fatal_distraction.pdf>

------
gte910h
There is no reason to ban talking if you don't also ban handsfree use. Studies
show it is no less dangerous to use a handsfree device.

My question is: Will states implement a mapping exception?

------
jameskilton
To be somewhat devil's advocate:

There's only so far you can go to try to protect people from being idiots.

There are plenty of data points now that show that texting related accidents
and deaths went up when the bans were enacted because instead of doing the
sensible thing and NOT texting while driving, these people simply moved the
phone into their lap instead of in a place where they could still kind of see
the road ahead.

It's an unfortunate fact that people have tendencies to be extremely stupid
under the guise of "I can do it, it won't cause _me_ to crash", and no law
will fix this.

~~~
cstross
_There's only so far you can go to try to protect people from being idiots._

This isn't about protecting people from being idiots; it's about protecting
people _from_ idiots.

DUI bans aren't about the drunk drivers, they're about the innocent third
parties they kill and maim. Ditto the requirement to hold third-party
insurance when driving a vehicle.

I suspect that what's needed is not merely a ban, but a public education
campaign to ram this point home. ("Do _you_ want to be maimed by an idiot who
can't pull over to answer a text? If not, don't do it to other people!")

~~~
BigZaphod
No, the point is that even if you ban it in order to protect "everyone else",
people who insist on being unsafe will find new ways to do so regardless of
the law. Banning behaviors is only effective if the ban is actually observed
by the people who are most likely to cause the behavior you're trying to ban
in the first place.

Edit: And yes, I agree with your last point about a PR campaign. Personally,
I'm not convinced we should go about banning every little behavior (especially
in cases like this which are effectively unenforceable) but instead spend the
resources on education about why a behavior is undesirable, uncool, dangerous,
etc.

~~~
nknight
Most people do not insist on being unsafe, and will avoid behaviors that they
are told are unacceptable and have concrete consequences.

Getting a ticket or even going to jail is a lot more concrete for most people
than accidents, which happen to _other people_.

------
tcarney
We need laws that focus on drivers, not the devices. There are plenty of ways
to be distracted while driving. There are also reasonable ways to manage some
of these distractions if you understand the risks. Saying "you can't do that"
to specific items isn't going to fix the problem, because most people just
don't get it. Driver education is severely lacking in the US. Now there's a
space where we could use some innovative start ups.

------
WalterBright
One possibility is that if you're in an accident, and it can be proven you
were on the cell phone at the time, that the presumption will be that you're
at fault for the accident. Even more, your insurance would not be on the hook
for any claims.

This should be a fair discouragement for the practice.

------
jws
It took a decade or so of driving and killing for the first laws against drunk
driving to be passed (1910). It took another 20 years (1930s) to really work
out what "inebriated" meant in a legal context and set definite limits.
Another 30-40 years passed before the "inebriated" limit got refined enough to
have its greatest impact (impaired vs. stumbling drunk).

Please pass the law, then in 10 years we can all laugh about how people used
to actually drive a car while talking on a cell phone as if that was
acceptable!

(Although I hope not to be driving my own car in 10 years. That's robot work.
I'll be reading a book or napping until the robot fires the "human attention
required" alarm.)

------
mindslight
Yippee, another on-high edict completely out of touch with reality. People are
just going to end up texting instead, so they aren't using the phone as long..

Does talking while driving divert some of my attention? Of course. But driving
on an artificially speed limited controlled-access road (with low traffic)
requires a limited amount of attention in the first place (a good chunk spent
checking the mirror to avoid being hassled by the standard cop driving 95mph).

------
encoderer
Banning hands-free is inane. Modern cars integrate hands-free operation very
well. In many ways it's easier for me to use my integrated phone than it is
the sirius radio.

~~~
anigbrowl
True, but most people don't hold conversations with the radio.

'Yeah, so we should talk about this...hello? hello? Can you hear me now? I
think going through a dead spot...how about nCRUNCH'

------
coreyo
Who will care when my Google's self driving car is the norm?

------
justncase80
Should just have a nationwide ban on people driving cars. Let google drive us
all. As long as people are allowed to drive we'll be killing each other in
droves.

------
beej71
Does banning cell phone use while driving decrease the number of cell phone-
related driving accidents? Are there numbers to back this up?

------
VladRussian
instead they'd better mandate the ultrasound radar in front of the vehicle,
similar to parking sensor in the rear, yet with additional chip that would
take the speed (and direction of the turn if any) into account to calculate
the distance for sound&visual warning to the driver. A cheap solution to so
many traffic accidents i see regularly on my commute on 101.

~~~
anigbrowl
Actually, they did recommend that for commercial vehicles. The NTSB doesn't
issue mandates because it's an investigative agency rather than an enforcement
one. But none of the news reports include that information because it's boring
and doesn't get as many eyeballs.

[http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2011/gray_summit_mo/index.ht...](http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2011/gray_summit_mo/index.html)

------
washedup
Don't they know about autonomous cars?

~~~
Turing_Machine
Nevada (the first jurisdiction to officially allow self-driving cars) has, in
fact, added an exemption to its cell phone ban for that type of vehicle.

------
ghoustonjr
Sounds like a bad idea. How would you enforce a ban on the use of hands-free
devices while driving?

~~~
cstross
How do you enforce a ban on drunk driving?

Police patrols identify drivers who're driving erratically, video them if
they're holding a handset, then pull them over. If not holding a handset, then
(a) it's possible to detect cellphone emissions and pull over those who are
driving without passengers, or (b) dangerous driving constitutes Probable
Cause for pulling the driver's cellphone usage log to see if it was in use
while the vehicle was in motion.

(It's labour-intensive, but it's not rocket science.)

~~~
ghoustonjr
Wouldn't it be better to forgo the ban on hands-free devices, and instead just
direct the police to pull over and ticket people who are driving recklessly?
Scanning for cellphone emissions sounds expensive and, as you said, labor
intensive. I'm also not sure if that's currently legal.

I suppose I don't want to see the police patrols spending all of their time
trying to enforce a ban on this one source of distraction. Instead of
ticketing people for engaging in one behavior which makes them more likely to
drive recklessly, just go after the people who are driving recklessly.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, but you don't want to re-litigate what constitutes recklessness in every
case. Take drunk driving: a fixed threshold of blood alcohol content (0.08) is
a rather crude threshold and takes little account of individual driving
performance, but it would be expensive and time-consuming to objectively
measure every motorist's baseline performance, degree of impairment, and so on
in every case involving DUI. It's already difficult in that smart lawyers will
challenge the accuracy and correct configuration of the breathalyzer equipment
- as they should - and drivers who test just barely over the limit can often
be acquitted or have their charges dropped. On the plus side, the
arbitrariness of the threshold not only simplifies prosecutions where users
are clearly very far over it, it also dissuades people from approaching the
threshold by discouraging them from drinking and driving at all; thus the
perception that a DUI charge is a big headache acts effectively to discourage
the unwanted behavior. The fact that alcohol intake is objectively measurable,
even if impairment is not, provides clarity about both the nature of the
proscribed behavior and the risk of liability if one engages in it.

Interestingly, it appears that states where medical marijuana is legal see a
lower rate of fatal traffic accidents; stoned drivers are thought to be more
cautious than normal, and over-compensate for their psychomotor impariment by
driving more slowly and waiting longer at stop signs:
<http://hometestingblog.testcountry.com/?p=17893>

------
funkah
I think this is fine, because of course it's dangerous, but the same should go
for many other activities behind the wheel. Eating, doing your makeup, any
kind of reading... cell phone usage is so not the only thing distracting
drivers behind the wheel.

------
lhnn
Let's ban talking and adjusting the radio, lest you face the wrath of
prison/thousands of dollars in fines.

~~~
jrockway
I'm not sure you can argue that these are the same thing.

When you're talking to someone in the car, they can react to traffic and act
as a second set of eyes for you. And, you're not struggling to hear them over
all the noise injected by our 1990s-era cell phone networks. Finally,
passengers in your car do not suddenly ring, giving you only a few seconds to
acknowledge something potentially important (distracting you from the road).
I've seen people when their phone rings; they go into crisis mode and mentally
drop everything until they've answered the phone or decided to ignore the
call. When you're driving, you can't do that. And it's something a passenger
wouldn't require you to do.

As for the radio; you have the opportunity to adjust it at your leisure,
typically without even moving your hands off the steering wheel. It's simply
not _as distracting_ as a phone call.

Passengers and the radio are dangerous, but not as dangerous as talking on
your phone.

~~~
adolph
How do you know these (other people, radio, etc) aren't as distracting? Is
there any research?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, there is lots of research - see above:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3349117>

Road accidents are expensive for the public finances - think of all the
mergency workers and medical expenses multiplied by the large number of road
accidents. That really adds up over a year, which is a big reason we have such
a thing as a 'national transportation safety board' in the first place.

The most recent stats (2009) show about 30,0000 fatalities a year
(<http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx>). Thirty thousand deaths!
Even in a country with a population of ~300m, that's a lot. On the plus side,
it's fallen by about a third over the last 15 years. The most recent fall is
probably linked to a loss of economic activity and the rising rice of gas, but
regulation of vehicle construction and the like has played a big part too.
Consider the loss to the economy of 30,000 people a year, plus the cost of
people who are 'just' injured; there's no #s on that FARS page but I've seen
estimates of $250-350 billion a year, which is near 2% of GDP. Put another
way, if the ~30% drop in fatalities shown at the link above is a good proxy
for costs, the US economy benefits to the tune of $100 billion a year.
Changing driver behavior only accounts for a fraction of that, but the obvious
place to start would be looking at DUI statistics.

