Talking on cellular phones
creates traffic safety riskThe issue: A new study shows that
hands-free cellular telephones are no
safer than manual cell phones while driving.NEW York took what seemed to be an important step toward highway safety in June when it became the first state to ban the use of hand-held cellular telephones while driving. However, studies continue to show that the measure may be inadequate, that the enhanced safety of using telephone headsets instead of hand-held phones could be marginal at best. Legislation distinguishing between the two increasingly appears to be a meaningless and dangerous compromise.
An often-cited study four years ago by the New England Journal of Commerce found that the risk of a collision when using a cell phone quadrupled, the same effect as intoxication. Some people concluded that the danger consisted of drivers putting their hands on the phone instead of the steering wheel. Verizon Wireless endorsed legislation imposing "hands free" requirements on cell phone use in driving.
That's not it, according to researchers at the University of Utah. In a study released by the National Safety Council, they found that the distraction comes from conversing on the cell phones, not handling them. Study participants were directed to press their thumbs on a joystick's "brake button" as soon as they detected a red light. They were randomly assigned to listen to the radio or books on tape, or converse on hand-held cell phones or hands-free cell-phone devices.
The increased risk of accident caused by talking on the cell-phone, the researchers found, is four times that of listening to the radio or a book on tape -- the same as that estimated in the earlier study.
"Almost everybody has some personal experience of being on the road with some bozo who was driving and using a cell phone and they almost got them into an accident," David Strayer, a psychology professor and lead author of the study, told the Los Angeles Times. "If you ask most people, they will say they are not impaired while they're driving...everyone else is impaired." How many drunk drivers claim similar confidence that they pose no risk?
The cell-phone industry responds that available crash data don't indicate that wireless phones contribute to a significant number of accidents. That may be because police and highway patrol officers don't keep track of such occurrences in the same way as they do of alcohol's relationship to accidents or safety-belt usage to traffic fatalities.
Legislators nervous about offending the more than 117 million subscribers of cell phones in the United States -- spending an average of 60 percent of their cell phone time while driving -- will say further data needs to be collected before deciding whether remedies are needed. That data, of course, will be in the form of highway fatalities and injuries connected with cell-phone usage.
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