Fatal Distraction
The road to banning cell phone use among drivers is long and winding. And quite possibly endless.
Friday, September 25, 20091
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I've traveled the stretch of Interstate 91 between Springfield and Hartford for more than 30 years now, and I know it well. But even though the roadway is the same, something's changed.
It's turned scary.
Here's how it goes. I'm driving along uneventfully in the middle lane - my lane of choice, for the maneuverability factor - when the car in front of me starts slowing down, for no reason that I can discern.
Next the car starts drifting to one side, almost touching the line that divides the lanes. Sometimes it goes over the line for a few seconds, or maybe longer.
At this point, I've slowed down myself to put distance between us.
The car starts drifting in the other direction, again crossing over the line.
By now I'm pretty sure I know what's going on. Like the doom-and-gloom father in "Freaks and Geeks," I hiss, "That driver must be drunk."
Or alternatively, "That driver must be on drugs."
Then, if I finally muster the courage to pass - making sure to have at least a lane separating me from the drifter - I'll glance over.
And almost always, I find, "that driver" is actually on a cell phone.
This July, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported that 35 percent of drivers feel less safe on the road than they did five years ago. The biggest reason cited? Distracted driving by others.
Distracted driving can mean anything from fiddling with the radio buttons to gabbing with Grandma in the back seat. But what it very often means these days is talking on a cell phone, or texting with a cell phone.
Dialing? Texting? Who would be crazy enough to type tiny little numbers and letters onto a tiny little keypad, you ask - while steering a 2-ton behemoth at speeds of 70 or more?
A lot of people. More than 100 million Americans use cell phones while they're at the wheel, the National Safety Council says. And those drivers are four times more likely to be involved in crashes.
No wonder people feel less safe.
But ... it turns out that many of those same drivers who told the AAA foundation that they feel less safe on the road are actually part of the problem. A fifth of the people surveyed said they text while driving. Two-thirds reported talking on a cell phone while driving.
I, against my better judgment, am occasionally among that latter group. Like Pavlov's dog, I hear the bell - my "Rockford Files" ring tone - and am conditioned to respond.
So, to recap: We know that using cell phones makes driving less safe. But we do it anyway.
And that's the conundrum facing highway safety advocates, law enforcement officials and legislators: How do you deal with a behavior many people consider wrong, but don't want to stop?
Next week in Washington, D.C., Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will convene the first-ever federal Distracted Driving Summit, aimed at reducing the numbers of crashes and deaths due to drivers who simply aren't paying attention. It will be, LaHood promises, a "historic dialogue."
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"What's really scary," says Easthampton Police Chief Bruce McMahon, "is that for every mile an hour, you travel 1.4666 feet every second." If you're going just 30 mph and you look down at your phone for a single second, McMahon calculates, you've covered 44 feet. "That's a long ways." And if, in the space of those 44 feet, the car in front of you has suddenly pulled up short, or somebody has stepped into the road - well, you can easily become a distracted driving statistic.
Just last week, a Granby woman crossed over the center line and crashed into another vehicle, seriously injuring an East Longmeadow man; police have said they suspect she was texting moments before the crash. And Sunday night, an 18-year-old from Clinton died when her vehicle traveled into the oncoming lane, then left the roadway and hit a tree. Her cell phone records indicated she had been sending and receiving text messages from her car.
But getting hard data on the numbers of crashes and deaths in Massachusetts caused by talking and texting on cell phones is tricky.
The Driver Contributing Code section of the form that police use for accident reports does include a check box for cellular telephone use, although there's no sub-category for texting. Figures compiled from those crash reports by the state Registry of Motor Vehicles aren't particularly alarming. In 2008, there were 128,374 total crashes in Massachusetts, with 400 of them listing cell phones as a contributing factor. That's just 0.3 percent - barely a statistical blip.
Can that be right? Not likely, say the people who deal with accidents firsthand. What driver is going to admit, 'Yes, officer, I rear-ended the vehicle in front of me because I was texting my BFF'? Often, the role of cell phones in accidents doesn't get recorded.
Researchers are working to come up with better numbers, with hundreds of road studies and simulations either completed or in progress. The DoT Distracted Driving Summit, in fact, was prompted in large part by such research - specifically, a report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute that contained particularly sobering findings.
In two studies from 2007 to 2009, VTTI observed 203 long-haul truck drivers via video cameras installed in their cabs. In July, the institute issued its report: The odds of being involved in a crash or near-crash increased 23.2 times when the drivers were texting.
Virginia Tech isn't the only place looking at this behavior, although thus far it's produced some of the most damning evidence. Already, says Anne McCartt of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a non-lobbying nonprofit that studies crash data, more than 150 such studies have found that driver performance is affected by cell phone use - decreasing reaction time, and increasing lane deviation. And that's all kinds of cell phones, by the way, including hands-free models. (What's the difference between talking hands-free on your cell and talking to someone in the seat next to you? The passenger can observe driving conditions and pipe down when appropriate.)
Go to www.iihs.org to take a look at the studies.
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Last month I visited a laboratory housed in a nondescript building on the fringe of the University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst. It's the Human Performance Lab, and it studies driver behavior.
The lab has two "vehicles," one an actual car, the other a dashboard and steering wheel, both connected to video monitors. The setups allow the lab to observe volunteer subjects during simulated driving situations like lane changes, traffic signals, pedestrians darting out from behind parked cars - in other words, the sorts of things that every driver encounters every time he or she gets behind the wheel.
Right now the lab is looking at "the distribution of the duration of in-vehicle glances," says its director, Donald L. Fisher. In lay terms, that means how, and for how long, drivers take their eyes off the road to attend to a task that involves looking around inside the car, like getting a CD from a case, consulting a map - or dialing a cell phone.
The research was prompted, Fisher adds, by a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report warning that taking your eyes off the road for more than two seconds is dangerous. The UMass lab is looking at what happens when those glances are longer than two seconds, and how that differs among various age groups.
Among the findings so far: When people aged 30 to 55 are given a secondary task in one of the simulators, they violate the "two-second rule" 20 percent of the time. When college-age drivers are given the same task, they violate the rule 60 percent of the time.
I took the driver's seat to see how the simulator works - and how well I can manage those secondary tasks.
Matthew Romoser, a human factors researcher, let me go on a practice run, then asked if I was feeling OK. Some of the "older drivers" the lab uses as subjects, he said, experience vertigo and have to drop out.
No vertigo, I reported. Just a slight sensation of irritation. I'm not that old.
Still, the simulator's game-style graphics were a little off-putting for someone like me who hasn't played a video game since Pac-Man, so I took one more practice run. Afterward, while I wasn't entirely at ease on the "road," I wasn't an accident waiting to happen, either.
Or so I thought.
Romoser asked me to take out my cell phone, which happens to be an iPhone, purchased in part because of its easy-to-read graphics. He wrote down his phone number in big print and placed the slip of paper on the simulator's dashboard.
I started driving, negotiating turns and traffic. Romoser asked me to dial his cell. I took my eyes off the road briefly to glance at the number. A moment later, I took my eyes off the road once more to dial that number, and the screen went blank.
I had crashed.
And I hadn't even looked away all that long.
Different drivers have different skill levels, of course, and those who are adept at new technologies argue that while certain people - like me - shouldn't text and drive, or dial and drive, or even talk and drive, it's OK for them to do it. They're good at it.
If you are among that group, I have a suggestion. Go to www.nytimes.com, and search in the Media section for "distracted driving." You'll find an interactive game where you can test your skill at driving and texting.
Good luck.
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Here are excerpts from interviews over the last month with various people who have a professional stake in the issue of talking and texting while driving:
"We found that it didn't matter in terms of the increased risk whether the phone was hand-held or hands-free. ... the cognitive distraction of talking on a phone is an important source of risk. ... With either kind of phone, or texting, a big piece of the problem is that your brain is occupied with something other than driving."
- Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
"Determine right off the bat whether you really need to make or take that call. Chances are you don't - and it can wait. That's number one. That's number one by a lot. Beyond that, if you do need to carry on a conversation we advise people to keep it as short as possible - to never take notes or look up numbers while they're driving, never dial while driving, to suspend the call if in heavy traffic or bad weather. Pull over to a safe place like a parking lot."
- John Walls, vice president of public affairs, CTIA - The Wireless Association
"Most people would never drink and drive. [Looking at] email while you're driving isn't that much better. They're both deadly, dangerous behaviors. And neither should be condoned.
"People always think it's the other person's issue. 'I don't have a problem when I'm talking on the phone and driving.' But we are all that person."
- Sandra Marsian, vice president of membership, marketing and public relations, AAA Pioneer Valley, West Springfield
"If you're texting a message on a cell phone obviously you cannot be watching the road. ... I'd like to see no texting, and I'd even go so far as to say there shouldn't be any use of cell phones in cars."
- Bruce McMahon, chief of police, Easthampton
So, it's clear there's a problem. What are we going to do about it?
The answer seems simple: Ban cell phone use by drivers. At the very least, ban texting.
Some states have already ventured down that path. But there is no uniform national standard when it comes to cell phone use while driving - each state is allowed to make its own laws - and the ones that have made it onto the books are all over the map. Some apply to all types of cell phone use by all drivers. Some apply only to hand-held phones. Some apply only to texting. Some apply only to specific populations, like new drivers, or school bus drivers. To see exactly what "all over the map" means, take a look at theInsurance Institute for Highway Safety graphics on this page.
In Massachusetts, current law does the following:
* It allows cities and towns to ban the use of hand-held cell phones by drivers.
* It prohibits school bus drivers from using cell phones while operating a bus.
And that's it.
While there's a generic distracted driving law on the books, says Rep. Joseph Wagner of Chicopee, the co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, it specifically excludes two devices. One is CB radios. The other is cell phones.
Wagner, by the way, was at the wheel of his car when we spoke - but using a hands-free Bluetooth head set.
During his visit to the Gazette this summer, I asked Gov. Deval Patrick about the Virginia Tech study, and if he thought the time was right in the commonwealth for legislative action on cell phone use and texting by drivers.
Here's his response, in part:
"Have you seen what people are doing behind the wheel? ... They're reading the paper. They're putting on their makeup. I've seen the driver texting while the passenger was steering.
"It's scary out there."
A ban on texting? Pretty much a no-brainer, he went on to say.
But banning talking on a cell while driving?
That's "a little more complicated," the governor said. Then he started ... well, hedging.
"I don't know quite where I come down on that. As someone who does an awful lot of my own business on the phone, in the car ... right now I have the help of the state police so I'm not driving. But one day I'll be driving again - and I don't know. I'm not so sure what I would do."
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The governor's not alone in his equivocation. Proposals by state lawmakers dealing with distracted driving are traveling down the legislative pike awfully slowly.
This past June the Joint Committee on Transportation held hearings on not one, not two, not three, but 16 proposed laws dealing with the use of cell phones by drivers.
Several called for total bans on texting.
One would ban held-hand cell use by all drivers, as well as all cell use, hand-held and hands-free alike, by junior drivers.
One would create a public awareness campaign about the dangers of texting, funded by telecommunications companies.
Not one of the 16 bills has gained much traction.
In fact, that's been the pattern for years, according to Rep. Wagner. The bills garner support in the House, but fall by the wayside once they get to the Senate.
And, as happened with seat belt laws years ago, the proposals have enraged some citizens who say it's nobody's business what we do in our own vehicles.
This comment was posted on the Massachusetts section of handsfreeinfo.com, which advocates for cell phone bans:
"Is there a law that says, 'Don't stick you [sic] tongue in a [sic] electric socket, and if somebody is dumb enough to do it, is ti [sic] the legislatures [sic] fault for not making a law, ordinance, or statute to prevent such activity? What ever happened to freedom of choice?'"
The argument against that, of course, is that sticking your tongue in an electric socket has the potential to hurt just one person - you. Distracted driving has the potential to hurt many people.
To those who don't want their rights infringed, Wagner has this to say: "Driving in Massachusetts is a privilege granted by law. It's not a constitutional right, it's not a birthright, it's not a right of any kind. It's a privilege."
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Things are changing the legislative front in neighboring states, though.
Connecticut banned hand-held cell phones four years ago.
New York banned them even earlier, in 2001.
In Maine, a distracted driving law just went into effect, targeting drivers who fail to maintain control on the road because they are "engaged in an activity that is not necessary to the operation of the vehicle." Unlike the Massachusetts distracted driving law, it does not exclude cell phones.
There have been other changes as well.
This month, the new head of the National Transportation Safety Board prohibited the board's 400 employees from talking or texting on cell phones while driving on government business. "The risk of catastrophic consequences is too great," Chairman Deborah Hersman said.
The CTIA - The Wireless Association is loath to support bans on talking on cells while driving, for obvious reasons - it represents the cell phone industry, and it wants people to be able to use its products. Recently, though, the association has spoken out in support of efforts to ban texting. Drivers can decide for themselves whether they should or should not be talking on a cell, says spokesman John Walls. But no driver should text, the CTIA says.
Last month, the Governors Highway Safety Association, which is made up of state highway safety officials appointed by each governor, and which has a longstanding policy of not advocating one way or another on legislation, changed course with this announcement:
"The membership of the Governors Highway Safety Association has enacted a new policy encouraging every state to ban texting behind the wheel for all drivers."
Congress, too, may finally be getting involved. The ALERT (Avoiding Life-Endangering and Reckless Texting) Drivers Act would require states to ban drivers from texting or sending email. States that did not comply would lose a hefty portion of their federal highway funds. The bill, filed in the Senate in July, is now in committee.
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For argument's sake, let's say Massachusetts does pass a comprehensive law, banning all use of cell phones by drivers.
How, exactly, would law officers deal with it?
"These laws make sense but they're tough to enforce," says Anne McCartt of the IIHS. "It's tough to see if someone is texting, tough for a police officer to see if someone is talking on a hands-free phone. ... So I think we'd all have to acknowledge that the laws probably won't achieve complete compliance."
But there are always the lessons of the past.
Back in the 1960s, laws mandating seat belt use were dismissed as impossible to enforce, too. But now most drivers routinely buckle up. How come?
McCartt sees it as a long, incremental process: "What we found with seat belts is that when there first began to be evidence they would keep people safe, just that education alone got a small percentage of drivers to buckle up. ...
"When laws began to be enacted that percentage increased substantially," McCartt continues. "But then compliance faded until there were programs that publicized it." And it took that double-barreled approach - legislation and education - to get seat belt use to where it stands today, at about 80 percent compliance.
That same pattern could very well be repeated with cell phone laws, experts say.
And even if such laws don't get everyone into line, they will change some behaviors.
"If we only get 50 percent of people not texting, where before only 20 percent were not texting, does that means the policy's a failure?" asks Donald Fisher of UMass. "No. It's just not a complete success."
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Matthew Romoser of the UMass Human Performance Lab says that observing the lab's distracted driving simulations has changed his own behavior. When he's driving, he told me, "I don't answer the phone." He's set up his cell so that incoming calls will get this message: "I'm driving."
He calls it a "cheap public service announcement."
Any legislation to ban talking and texting will need that extra step: education.
There are already efforts under way. The CTIA is in its third round of public service TV spots, which it started eight years ago, and has a "micro site" at www.ctia.org targeted at teenage drivers. "If you can modify their behavior at the outset then you have a chance of better adult drivers," says spokesman John Walls. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all have educational campaigns. The National Safety Council and AAA do too. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urges drivers not to use cell phones. The state's office of highway safety works with MADD, SADD, and schools and colleges to raise awareness of the dangers of texting, says its director, Sheila Burgess.
In other words, the message is out there.
But many efforts tend to be low-key. One PSA features comedian Fred Willard in the back seat of a car whose driver is texting, with Willard gently threatening to "haunt" her if she doesn't stop. A more visceral approach may be needed, some say. A public service announcement used in Wales provides graphic proof of the dangers of texting: crashing cars, heads slamming into glass, lots of blood. As of last week, it had had nearly 1,800,000 hits on YouTube alone. Even those who go to the spot looking only for guts and gore get an in-your-face message: Don't text and drive.
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The Department of Transportation's Distracted Driving Summit this coming Wednesday and Thursday is a shotgun affair, as government gatherings go. Secretary LaHood announced it only seven weeks ago.
The summit will assemble panel discussions by experts who will examine the various ways to get at the issue: laws, enforcement of those laws, education. But LaHood has stressed that it's not going to be only the usual bureaucrats - policy wonks, elected officials, safety advocates, law enforcement personnel, private sector representatives, academics - offering input.
He says he wants to hear from people all over the world about the distractions that new technology poses to drivers. And in a bit of irony, new technology is going to make that possible.
Got something to say on the issue? Go to www.rita.dot.gov, and you'll find a link for the Distracted Driving Summit that tells how to submit comments and questions in advance. Once the summit begins, the site will broadcast it via a Webcast, and post updates. There will be Twitter updates. If you're watching a panel discussion, and you want to add your point of view, you can do that, too, via the Web site.
Sheila Burgess, director of highway safety for the state's Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, knows exactly what she'd like to see come out of the summit: more money for education. Drivers need to be made aware of just how dangerous it is to talk or text behind the wheel, she says.
"People have to make conscious decisions about their actions," she said last week.
"How horrible is it to know that somebody's dead now because you looked down at your cell phone - for something that said what? Something that important that it cost someone their life?"
Margot Cleary can be reached at MCleary@gazettenet.com.
