Saturday, June 07, 2008
Cell phones and wasting gasoline
I have long railed against laws that require "hands free" use of cell phones while driving. I believe they are unsupported by evidence -- accidents have declined substantially during the cell phone era -- and opinion to the contrary is a function of observer bias. I also believe that they are causing people to waste gasoline.
I use an ear bud, but more and more people are using bluetooth systems built into their cars or added with aftermarket devices. These systems cut off when the driver turns off the car's engine, so people are increasingly in the habit of sitting in idling cars to talk on the telephone rather than terminating the phone call merely because they have arrived at their destination. Not only have I seen beloved family members do this, but in the last few months -- since New Jersey made handheld cell phone use a primary offense -- I have been on the other end of numerous calls in which my counterparty was sitting in an idling automobile. Today, after having dropped my son off at the SAT administration at the Hun School, I walked back out to the parking lot only to see the cars on both sides of mine idling while the drivers chatted away on their speaker phones.
This is idiocy on stilts, but a perfectly predictable consequence of the ridiculous "hands free" laws. The nanny staters are, apparently, going to have to choose between the various ways to boss us around.
MORE: Lest my credibility is such that you actually want evidence to support by position that the "hands free" laws are stupid, I commend to you the Department of Transportation's massive report on "Traffic Safety Facts."
Point one, the absolute number of automobile accidents -- fatal, injurious, or otherwise -- has declined significantly since 1988, roughly the beginning of the cell phone era.
Point two, the number of accidents -- fatal, injurious, or involving only property damage -- per 100 million miles driven (that is, corrected for traffic volume) has declined precipitously since 1988. Accidents involving only property damage (useful for this purpose because declines in fatalities and injuries are presumably at least in part a function of safer cars) declined from 437 per 100 million vehicle miles driven in 1988 to 258 in 2005 (see the table on page 17 in the linked document). Since cell phone use was exploding during that period and it was before widespread adoption of "hands free" laws, the only way that advocates of those laws can sustain their argument is by claiming that the roads would have gotten even safer were it not for drivers gabbing away. Where is their evidence, other than the absurd point that more accidents today involve drivers who are talking on the telephone than in years past (absurd, duh, because far more people are talking on the phone at any given point in time). The more likely explanations for the decline in accidents during the cell-phone era are, first, that talking on cells phones is substituting for other forms of distraction (putting on makeup, reading maps, looking at fascinating things along the way) or, second, that people who talk on phones compensate by driving more conservatively while they talk. If, for example, a significant proportion of the people who talk on phones slow down a bit, do not fluctuate their speed, and avoid changing lanes (as I and many other drivers obviously do), then it may be that cell phones have contributed to the huge improvement in road safety in the last twenty years.
In any case, the "hands free" laws make absolutely no sense to me. If the point is that it is distracting to have something in your hand then we should also abolish cup-holders and the eating of food. If the point is that it is distracting to have a conversation in the car, then we should ban conversations between passengers and the driver. Both suggestions are so laughable that they immediately reveal the stupidity of the "hands free" laws, which serve no actual purpose other than to give the constabulary yet another reason to pull you over.
16 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Jun 07, 12:20:00 PM:
it's doubly un-necessary in that people can easily turn off the car engine without ending their phone calls.
By 
Roy Lofquist, at
Sat Jun 07, 04:57:00 PM:
Statistics have value only if the presumptions about the data are valid.
In the case cited in this article, and indeed every similar article I have seen, the presumption is that miles traveled is the underlying metric. I believe that hours traveled is a much better metric.
A preponderance of accidents happen because of fatigue, distractions and sheer number of potential accident situations. These conditions are exacerbated by travel time, not distance.
It is more likely that the decrease in accidents is more attributable to the abolishment of the 55 mph "conservation" speed limit than any other factor.
By , at
Sat Jun 07, 05:06:00 PM:
I thought that the risk was from the distraction of the cell phone call and not necessarily from it being hand-held or not.
See this.
JLW III
By , at
Sat Jun 07, 05:51:00 PM:
Is my cell phone some sort of outlier? When the Bluetooth device I'm using to talk on it disconnects it...reverts to normal handset operation.
I agree the idling business is idiocy on stilts, but it's a predictable consequence of people who don't know how their phone works at least as much as any law.
By , at
Sat Jun 07, 05:59:00 PM:
Would you let a surgeon operate on you while they were jabbering on a cell phone?
If not, why not?
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Jun 07, 06:21:00 PM:
Because it uses up a hand.
Drinking a coke also takes up a hand. So does jack slapping your mouthy kid. So does changing the CD in your CD player. Or surfing channels on the radios. Or eating chips. Moving the sun visor. Adjusting mirrors. Playing with the AC. Et cetera. All of which are perfectly legal to do while driving.
The other part of the activity, speaking, is also common and perfectly legal. Even surgeons do it in the middle of operations.
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Jun 07, 06:57:00 PM:
All good points, Dawnfire, to which I would add that we let one-armed people drive.
By Andrewdb, at
Sat Jun 07, 11:28:00 PM:
If cell phones distract drives and make them unsafe, why do we allow car radios?
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Jun 08, 12:24:00 AM:
So perhaps we should make it illegal for one-armed people to talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time.
Or is that 'discriminatory?'
By Roy, at
Sun Jun 08, 01:00:00 AM:
My recollection is that there was a study that showed cellphone conversations were more dangerous than conversations with a passenger. A passenger naturally pauses when the driver needs to focus on the road. (Unfortunately, a minute of google did not reveal a reference.)
That said, I agree the law is stupid since a cellphone is just one of many distractions. For example, a crying baby is a major distraction, but nobody is proposing that babies in the car should be illegal.
By Mike, at
Sun Jun 08, 01:00:00 AM:
The problem is not sound, or using your hands. It's all about multitasking. We just are not very good at focusing on two demanding tasks (driving and conversing) at the same time.
Talking to other people in the car turns out to be no worse of a problem than listening to the radio. Your passengers will get quiet when you're in a dangerous situation or when your voice gets tense.
That said, I use my cell in the car, knowing that I endanger myself and others. I'm experimenting with a bluetooth - not because there's any difference in safety, but in tickets.
By , at
Sun Jun 08, 03:01:00 AM:
Is there an insurance company that offers a discount for not talking on the phone while driving? If not then talking on a cell phone does not affect the accident rate.
Good general rule, if you want to live a long life avoid the kind of things life insurance companies charge you extra for.
By , at
Sun Jun 08, 08:36:00 AM:
TH is correct that the hands free laws are idiotic. We don't need more laws on the books that remain unenforced. We already have laws regarding unsafe operation that if enforced would do more to protect innocent motorists from those careless few that allow themselves to become distracted while driving.
By Charlottesvillain, at
Mon Jun 09, 08:46:00 AM:
Here's a solution to the idling problem. Get off the damn phone. Who the hell are all these people talking to, anyway? I never talk on the phone when I drive. I never talk on the phone when I walk the streets of a big city. What would I talk about that couldn't wait? I can actually string together whole days without talking on the phone. I guess everyone else must be a lot more important than me.
By , at
Mon Jun 09, 12:34:00 PM:
Charlottesvillain, a lone beacon of sanity in an insane world, apparently.
Sorry TH, I absolutely cannot agree with you on this one. Here's the motto: SHUT UP AND DRIVE!
American drivers are pretty poor as it is, few master the basic skills of posture, hands on the wheel, checking mirrors, and driving defensively.
The last thing most of them need is yakking away on a phone at the same time.
I don't eat and drive, drink and drive, and when HVAC or radio needs adjusting, it is at a moment of minimal distraction. I need to keep constantly alert for the morons I share the road with, yakking nonsense on their pathetic links to the phone system.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Jun 09, 12:40:00 PM:
Sadly, many of us have many phone calls in a day. I have people in around 20 facilities in ten countries who report to me or in my organization, and that is only the internal constituencies. I have calls from investors, lawyers, bankers, and auditors almost every day. Yes, it is exhausting, and I am blessed with a short commute so I usually only get through a couple of those calls on the road. Back when I had a 62 mile commute, though, I did calls the entire time. Now I end up doing a lot of them from phone, which is annoying to my family. Oh, yeah. I have to talk to them, too.
But, as I said, I use an ear bud rather than a hard-wired bluetooth, so I don't have the problem.
