Don’t Dial and Drive

Legislatures tell drivers to hang up.

“The light turned green, so I started to pull into the intersection. A car was headed straight for me, driver’s side. I hit the brake. Then the car hit me.”



Tim Erenberger remembers the horrific sound of screeching tires, the smell of the gas from the inflated airbags—and his first look at the driver who hit him. According to witnesses at the scene, the other driver was talking on her cell phone when she sped through the red light. “She was still on the phone when she got out of her car,” Erenberger says.



The collision left Erenberger, an author from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, unscathed, but many others have been less fortunate. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, driver distractions account for nearly 80 percent of collisions each year—and cell phones are most commonly blamed. While reliable nationwide data on cell phone-related crashes isn’t available, a 2006 University of Utah study found that drivers using cell phones may be just as impaired as those who drive drunk. The increasing number of cell phone users on the road has caused state and city governments to consider restrictions. To date, 29 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws related to cell phone use in the car, according to Matt Sundeen, program principal of transportation for the National Conference of State Legislatures. But are cell phones more dangerous than other distractions facing drivers every day? Will these new laws really make us safer?



“A Matter of Saving Lives”
Washington state Sen. Tracey Eide thinks so. This month, Washington became the latest state to pass a law requiring cell phone users to use hands-free technology while behind the wheel, and Eide is the reason.



“I drive 50 miles every day to and from the office, and I see a lot of people talking on their cell phones, not signaling, not looking while changing lanes. It’s becoming an epidemic,” Eide says.



Eide has spent seven years pushing her bill through the state Legislature. She took up the issue after a constituent told her about nearly being hit by two cell phone-distracted drivers in the same day. Although she initially encountered strong resistance from the major players in the cell phone industry, Eide eventually was able to get all but one wireless carrier to support the bill. Amendments, such as allowing exemptions for emergency workers, and hours of debate finally led the legislature to approve the bill with broad bipartisan support, 33-15. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the bill into law. Using a handheld cell phone while driving will be a secondary offense, assessed when the driver is pulled over for another infraction. Chatty drivers can expect to be hit with a $101 fine.

Many Washington drivers appear to support the law. Eide cites a recent PEMCO Insurance poll of 600 drivers throughout the state that found that 85 percent believe talking on a cell phone while driving should be legal only with a hands-free device, or made illegal altogether.



“This was a long time coming,” Eide says. “It’s a matter of saving lives.”

A Bad Call?
Critics of bills such as Eide’s often point out that cell phones are just one of many distractions that could contribute to an accident. A January 2007 survey of drivers by Nationwide Mutual Insurance found that 31 percent of respondents daydreamed while driving, 19 percent fixed their hair, 14 percent comforted or disciplined children, and 8 percent drove with a pet in their lap. Other distractions included reading books, watching movies, writing grocery lists, nursing babies and painting toenails. So why do cell phones draw all the attention?



“Part of the answer could be cell phone visibility,” Sundeen says. “Anyone who’s been in a car lately knows that it’s common to see another driver maneuvering through traffic with one hand pressing a phone against his or her ear. Other potential distractions often are not as easy to spot.”



Eide says cell phones dominate a driver’s attention. “Other things you do in a car tend to be automatic. Being on a cell phone is more cognitive. You visualize the person on the other end as you’re speaking to them. Your thoughts are not on the road.”

High-tech research is putting that theory to the test. Professor John Lee, director of human factors research at the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator, is using an eye-tracking computer system to study how the use of handheld devices affects motorists’ distraction levels. “Many new types of technology are entering the car, and their designs do not consider how they affect driving safety,” Lee says. “In 2007, 70 percent of cars will have a connection for iPods, but the iPod can place demands on the driver that are inconsistent with safe driving.”



Lee’s research found that even a one-second glance away from the road can have a substantial effect on a driver’s ability to detect safety hazards. “Dialing and reaching to answer a cell phone can be extremely distracting and dangerous,” he says.



However, he adds, some hands-free phones may increase the level of distraction to the driver. “Locating and inserting an earbud might actually be more distracting,” Lee says. “If hands-free phones lead people to make more calls, then they could actually increase cell phone-related crashes.



“I think a critical message is that hands-free does not mean risk-free. Safe driving requires that both the eyes and the mind be on the road,” Lee says.



Indeed, the University of Utah study that equated cell phone distraction with drunkenness was conducted using hands-free phones.

Phoning It In
In places where restrictions on cell phone use have been around awhile, some feel such legislation is misguided. “One law isn’t going to improve anyone’s driving,” says New Jersey resident Celeste Murphy, 24. “What they should do is improve driver’s ed to include driving while talking on your cell phone, driving while text messaging, driving while eating a doughnut and drinking coffee, and driving with an obnoxious backseat driver.”



Others feel laws aren’t even enforced. Brycie Gold, 19, from Washington, D.C., says she obeys the law there by using a speaker phone, but many she knows don’t. “People think I’m an insane person because I look like I’m talking to myself, but at least I don’t get pulled over,” she says. “I’m not sure how heavily enforced it is, though, since my friends break it constantly and have yet to get caught.”



In Santa Fe, N.M., a local ordinance requires hands-free cell phones. “The cops signal to warn us when they see us,” says Brooks, 20, who declined to use his last name. “But I’ve never been busted.”



Rapper Busta Rhymes wasn’t so lucky. In November, he was issued a summons for breaking the New York law. Officers caught him talking on the phone while driving past a police station.



Erenberger supports a law restricting cell phone use while driving (a bill is being debated in the Iowa Legislature) but doesn’t believe one would have stopped the driver who crashed into him.



“I’m pretty sure that she and others would have no qualms about breaking a law about cell phones,” he says. “However, we shouldn’t let that stop us from trying to stop them.”

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