CTV News Washington Bureau Chief Paul Workman reports in
Texting and Driving: US Official Calls It 'Epidemic' that US
Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood is calling texting while
driving an "epidemic" and has made "distracted driving" almost a
personal crusade, opening a second annual national summit in
Washington, DC, focused on families of victims and their losses.
"The biggest distraction in America today," LaHood is quoted saying
"is people thinking they can drive safely with a cellphone in their
hand or texting."
Workman observes that LaHood could have substituted Canada
for America - or any other nation where cars and trucks and
buses have become "unguided missiles" in the hands of talking or
texting drivers, noting that 30 American states now have bans on
texting and driving or phoning and driving - the problem is
enforcement.
It's hard to believe that people can be so tragically stupid and
irresponsible, but I have friends who text while driving and get
indignant when criticized for doing so.
Cellphone conversation while driving poses nearly
the same risks as driving at the legal limit for alcohol.
An Ontario Medical Association report, based on a meta-analysis of
studies from around the world. points to the dangers of cellphone use
(not only texting) in automobiles, which negatively affects a driver's
cognitive function, visual concentration, speed of processing
information. and reaction time, putting drivers at significantly
greater risk of collision, regardless of whether the device is
handsfree or handheld, with cellphone conversation while driving posing
nearly the same risks as driving at the legal limit for alcohol.
A study cited by the Coalition for Cellphone-Free
Driving says the statistical likelihood of being involved in a
motor vehicle accident rises by a factor of four during cellphone use -
greater than with low-level alcohol impairment - and slows a driver's
reaction time by 18%.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA), in 2008 nearly 6,000 people died and more than half a million
were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. More than 20% of
crashes that same year involved some type of distraction, such as
"texting while driving" (TWD).
American teenage texters reportedly average over
4,000 text messages per month.
Popular infatuation with texting has grown from 4.1 trillion text
messages per year in 2008, to more than 1.6 trillion text messages per
day in 2010, a phenomenon whose side-effects, such as death and
injury due to car accidents, have yet to be fully quantified. American
teenage texters reportedly average over 4,000 text messages per month,
an intensity bordering on addiction for many, exacerbating the very
real dangers of TWD, probably subject to the self-deceptions and
rationalizations typical of other addictions.
Driving while intoxicated is almost universally considered socially
inappropriate and intolerable, but a growing body of research indicates
that DWT could become (and perhaps already has) as bad a public hazard
as DWI (if not a worse one) and should be just as socially unacceptable
as driving drunk.
Texting while driving is three times more
dangerous than driving drunk.
According to a UK Transport Research Laboratory study commissioned
by the Royal Automobile Club Foundation, motorists sending text
messages while driving are "significantly more impaired" than ones who
drive drunk, The study showed texters' reaction times deteriorated by
35% - with a whopping 91% decrease in steering ability - while similar
studies of drunk driving indicate reaction times diminishment of a
relatively modest 12%. By that measure, DWT is three times more
dangerous than DWI, and should logically be treated as severely if not
more so, both under the law and in terms of social censure.
However, there is an apparent disconnect between public conviction
and personal behavior. Reuters reported that while 83% of respondents
surveyed nationwide said DWT should be illegal, one-quarter of US
cellphone users admit to doing it. In a CTV online poll that
accompanied Paul Workman's report, 32% of respondents admitted to
having texted while driving.
People still drive while texting at the same rate
as a year ago.
A study conducted this year by mobile technology firm Vingo found
some of the worst DWT offenders living in states where DWT is already
banned or ban legislation is pending. In Tennessee, an alarming 42% of
drivers surveyed admitted to DWT, compared with a slightly less
horrific 26% of cellphone users nationwide. Vingo found 66% of drivers
aged 16 to 19 - already the least experienced and most crash-prone
cohort - admitted to driving while texting, and despite more states
enacting bans and increased public awareness of high-profile accidents,
people still drive while texting at the same rate as a year ago.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, automobile accidents
are now the leading cause of death in women under the age of 35 -
another cellphone-prolific, texting-oriented demographic.
Driving while texting is 50% more dangerous than
talking on your phone while driving.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has determined that using
cellphones - even handsfree units in voice mode - increases crash risk
fourfold, and texting - which distracts visually, physically, and
cognitively - increases risk six-fold. The US National Safety Council
advocates banning all cellphone use by automobile operators, advising
that the prudent course is to turn the ringer off and stash the phone
somewhere out of reach before turning the ignition key.
Parents also need to get on the case. A survey by SADD (Students
Against Destructive Decisions) and Liberty Mutual Insurance Group found
52% of teens who say their parents would be unlikely to punish them for
driving while texting said they would continue doing so, compared with
36% who believe their parents would penalize them.
Veteran automotive journalist and humorist Peter Egan tackled this
serious topic in a March 2010 Road & Track Magazine column entitled
Hang Up and
Drive, relating how he and his wife narrowly escaped disaster on a
Sunday morning motorcycle ride when, deciding to take the scenic route
home, he slowed to enter a side road just as a young woman cruised
through its stop sign without slowing, blabbering on her cellphone,
gazing in the other direction, oblivious to the oncoming bike and its
two riders.
"If I hadn't already backed off the throttle and started braking,"
Peter relates, "she would have killed us."
Egan also cites driving with a friend who insisted on simultaneously
talking on his cellphone while typing in a new destination into his
GPS, cutting off a merging gasoline tanker, and responding to the truck
driver's angry horn blast by lifting his "free" hand off the steering
wheel and shaking his fist, phone cradled against shoulder. Egan says
aside from that minor flaw, his friend is really a great guy (sort of
like a few drunks he's known).
Cellphone use while driving causes impairment
equal to driving with 0.08% blood-alcohol levels.
This is not an idle analogy. University of Utah studies in 2005 and
2006 found drivers talking on cellphones had 18% slower braking
response times than motorists focused on driving, concluding that
cellphone use while driving causes impairment equal to driving with
0.08% blood-alcohol levels - the legal limit in most states and
Canadian provinces. A 2006 National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration/Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study found 80%
of crashes directly linked to driver inattention, with cellphone use
topping the distractions list.
Even Oprah Winfrey has weighed in, urging her TV audience to sign
pledges not to chat or text from behind the wheel. The US Congress is
considering legislation to push all states to ban texting by
drivers.
Texting Kills
In September, Iconosys - a tech company that has developed a
customizable smartphone autoreply app for texts and calls, SMS Replier,
combats what it calls "the growing social epidemic of TWD" (SMS Replier
eliminates the need for TWD via a fully customizable auto reply to
texts and calls plus other safety features) - hit the road partnered
with FocusDriven.org, an advocacy group of the National Safety Council
for victims of motor vehicle crashes involving drivers using
cellphones, to raise awareness of dangers associated with TWD
addiction.
The cross-country "TextKills Tour" of college campuses was to inform
and educate about the dangers of Texting While Driving and other driver
distractions, and to raise money for FocusDriven.org, including
donating $2 from every sale of this special version of SMS Replier over
a two-month period to FocusDriven.org. Iconosys also plans to give away
100,000 copies of its software, worth $2,000,000, during the tour,
which wound up in Washington, DC, on September 21 at the NHTSA's second
National Distracted Driving Summit.
Recently, Mead Research, an independent research firm, picked SMS
Replier as a best of breed technological solution to TWD. A copy of
Mead's study* can be found
online. The SMS Replier app, which is currently available for Android
and Windows Mobile but not the iPhone, is available from Iconosys'
TextKills.com website.
While some US states and Canadian provinces have banned handheld
cellphone use behind the wheel, it seems increasingly clear that a more
concentrated effort to combat TWD is needed, including federal
legislation. But most importantly, a change in public perception and
attitude must take place, making texting while driving as socially
taboo as driving while drunk.
