Real cell-phone dangers exposed: Using wireless communication devices while driving

Now that the 2003 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report “Using Wireless Communication Devices While Driving” has been made public, it raises significant concerns about safety when driving with a cell phone. (Download the report as a pdf. Read "NHTSA withholds government study exposing cell phone driving dangers.")

When the report was last updated, it cited about 147 million active cell-phone subscribers and that figure was expected to climb. At the time, crash and fatality data from 2000 to 2002 show that cell phone use as a contributing factor increased 50 percent over that time. The estimate for 2002 was somewhere between 508 and 1,248 fatalities.

Jump ahead a few years and cell phones have become ubiquitous, with CTIA, the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry, citing 270.3 million wireless subscribers as of December 2008. And with the increased prevalence of cell phones, and expansion of interactive services like texting, crashes and injuries have also increased.

The National Safety Council (NSC) earlier this month released an estimate described as “conservative” that more than 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, 12,000 serious injuries, and 2,600 deaths are caused a year by a distracted drivers on cell phones.

NHTSA estimates that driver distraction from all sources contributes to 25 percent of all police-reported traffic crashes. If so, then data from this federal agency released this month shows that the NSC figures are indeed conservative.

NHTSA shows 5,811,000 total crashes in 2008—notably down from 2007. (It is important to note that during the first three months of 2009, national vehicle miles declined by about 11.7 billion miles compared to the previous year. That said, deaths per mile are also down.) One quarter of that 2008 figure is 1,452,750—a significant number of crashes Potentially impacted by driver distraction.

While no specific correlation can be made from this data set to injuries and deaths attributable to cell phone usage, the threat to motorists and even pedestrians has clearly increased since that 2003 NHTSA report was prepared.

Consumers Union’s take: The New York Times story exposing the withheld report raises serious concerns about NHTSA—an agency whose mission is to improve vehicle safety and save lives. One thing is very clear—talking or texting on a cell phone while driving is a dangerous distraction. It’s not just a matter of whether the phone is hands-free, and texting while driving raises this level of risk exponentially.  

Cell-phone use is becoming a major cause of road crashes and fatalities. NHTSA should step up and warn drivers about the risks of cell phone use behind the wheel, and state governments need to crack down on this growing problem.

Just this weekend, Consumer Reports Deputy Technical Director David Champion addressed the question “Should cell phone use by drivers be illegal?” in the New York Times. 

Also read: Texting while driving: A dangerous distraction and Talking in the slow lane

—Jeff Bartlett

Comments

[david]

Two things that hasn't been addressed are the root causes of cell phone usage and how to prevent it. One possible prevention is to increase the speed limits. Speed limits in the U.S. are too low for people to pay enough attention to their driving. I know I pay more attention the faster I go. When slow, I tend to fiddle with the radio. So, what should the speed limit be?

Near CR's test ground such as the Taconic State Parkway in NY and Merritt Parkway in CT, high double digits will likely be enough. In the flatland of Montana, speed limits might need to be in triple digits. Let us here your thoughts on this subject and ways to prevent or minimize cell phone usage.

[Steven C.]

Any cell phone use while the vehicle is in motion should be outlawed. "Hands-free" devices are useless, if the driver has to fumble with items in order to make or receive a phone call, and I'm sure there aren't too many drivers that will pull over to the side of the road in order to organize.
It's a catastrophe waiting to happen, because enforcement is severely lacking, at least on Long Island.
I pray my family and I are not victims of a cell phone user.
It's just as dangerous as a drunken driver, maybe more so, because they are not paying attention to the task at hand:
Driving!!

[Cale]

I'm not sure I agree with all the "ban cellphone usage" sentiments. While cellphone distraction is a problem, I think noisy children are a distraction, dropped cigarettes can be a distraction, and eating and drinking can be a distraction. There just seems no end to the distractions that could be banned.

What I don't get is how our nation has reduced traffic fatalities (measured in fatalities per 100 million miles traveled) at a time when cell phone use while driving has been a "dangerous distraction" (ie equivalent to a .08 blood alcohol content). The supposed dangers of cell phone use have either been offset by safer roads or vehicles or have not been accurately measured.

As a motorcyclist, I can assure you I do not want any distracted drivers anywhere in my vicinity but I believe in a code of personal responsibility that, to me at least, is more meaningful than traffic codes to limit cell phone usage.

Just my $.02.

Cale

[Dave]

This is one of those topics that nobody wants to address. Virtually all drivers own a cellphone, and are reluctant to both

(a) give up the ability to use those phones, and

(b) admit they have been doing something exactly as dangerous as driving drunk.

I've been a passenger in a car with any number of otherwise responsible drivers. Without exception, when they get on the phone they have a lot more difficulty adjusting to changes in traffic, observing signs, and controlling their vehicle (turning on or off wipers, lights). I've seen them have several close calls which they would not have had normally - exactly the behavior I'd expect them to exhibit after downing a few stiff drinks.

I have a cellphone, and sometimes answer it while driving. More often, though, I don't. The world will not end if someone has to wait five minutes for a returned call.

Handsfree units are irrelevant. The problem is entirely the diversion of attention from an activity that requires second-by-second awareness.

The idea that raising speed limits will improve driving safety is amusing. Does it become easier to steer around a road hazard or an sharper-than-expected corner when you're going faster?

[Judge Jay Miller]

I recall when taking an high performance driving course, several years ago, just when cell phones were gaining their popularity that our instructor, a professional driver, who not only trains young, race car drivers, but does much driving, stunt work for Hollywood, said he would never use a cell phone or allow his family to do so, because of the inherent dangers in such distraction. Somehow, 21st society has gotten people to set aside all judgment on safety and common sense, and lead people down a road toward suffering and tragedy.

Technology will not solve the inherent problem that the human brain cannot accept the amount of information and visual inputs, offered by technology, and be free and quick to make valid judgments about speed, objects, distance, behavior and obstructions.

That instructor taught his students that many of the "choices" or reactions made by drivers responding to an emergency are the opposite of what is the appropriate choice. Often drivers slam the brakes on, when they should speed up and drive out of harm's way. Drivers speed up when they should slow down. The human brain does not necessarily function well behind the wheel of a vehicle doing 20, 40 or 70 mph. Driving is NOT inherent. Driving is NOT intuitive. Driving is a TRAINED, LEARNED behavior.

The only way to change the human mind, to function properly, behind a car's wheel, is through rigorous training and practice. Most drivers have neither. Their improper responses have been reinforced over the years each has driven.

Then add distractions, and you have what we have now - roadways filled with unknowing, ill-trained, distractable and distracted drivers, being even more distracted by electronics, playing a game of chance with their lives and the lives of the rest of us around them.

If we care, at all, about the lives of our family, friends, others and our own, then we must insist that cellular phone use be outlawed and that drivers be trained in how to cope with the real, world dangers of driving on these crowded roads in the 21st century.

[Mouhamad A. Naboulsi]

We can say thank God that we have an administration and a congress that are not just open, but also active in pursuing real policies to save real people doing what they can to earn a living safely.

[joemami]

Yes in fact there are many distractions when driving.....and i do lots of driving. I have yet to see someone come in my lane or cut me off drinking or eating an apple. Cell phone users have been guilty of this a few times. Yes you can find excuses for other distractions but those other distractions don't have buttons or volumes and don't talk back to you.