Make driving and texting illegal:
DRIVING AND TEXTING CAN CAUSE DEADLY ACCIDENTS
The danger caused by texting while behind the wheel is no joke, and as an extremely graphic PSA from the UK shows in almost unbearable detail, the results can be truly deadly. The more than 4-minute video, which shows a group of teenage girls getting into a head-on collision while the driver of the car text messages, has caused some strong reactions due to its graphic nature, with some people asking if it goes too far.A national ban on texting while driving is expected to get a big push at this week's Distracted Driving Summit, hosted by the Department of Transportation. While the summit is described as a fact-finding effort, tragic stories told by victims of texters are expected to prompt new support for a Senate bill banning texting. That legislation, sponsored by New York Sen. Charles Schumer, already has a major champion: Ford Motor Co. What's more, Ford has conducted extensive studies of driver distractions and has just produced a poll that found most Americans support a national ban.
Here is the Ford poll:
SURVEY: U.S. DRIVERS SAY TEXTING WHILE DRIVING SHOULD BE BANNED; VOICE TECHNOLOGY SEEN AS SAFER
- A national survey released today showed 86 percent of licensed U.S. drivers described handheld texting while driving as "very dangerous," with 93 percent supporting a nationwide ban on texting
- Despite strong support for a nationwide handheld texting ban, only 42 percent of respondents believe drivers would stop texting if banned. More than 75 percent believe there would be more compliance if hands-free or voice-activated technologies were widely available
- Sixty-seven percent of drivers said they believed voice-activated technology is a safe alternative to handheld texting
- The most recent and most complete research shows that distractions that take drivers' eyes away from the road for an extended period of time are a factor in nearly 80 percent of accidents
DEARBORN, Mich., Sept. 25, 2009—The vast majority of U.S. drivers believes handheld texting while driving is very dangerous and should be banned nationwide, according to a new national survey released today.
The survey showed that 93 percent of U.S. drivers believe handheld texting while driving is "very dangerous" and 86 percent support a nationwide ban on texting. At the same time, only 42 percent of respondents believe drivers would stop texting behind the wheel if the practice was banned. However, more than 75 percent believe there would be more compliance if hands-free or voice-activated technologies were widely available.
The online survey was conducted September 18-21 by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates on behalf of the Ford Motor Company. Ford commissioned the survey as part of its efforts to understand driver perceptions related to distracted driving. Ford last week endorsed a proposed nationwide ban on handheld texting introduced by Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY).
"Research shows that activity that draws drivers' eyes away from the road for an extended period while driving, such as text messaging, substantially increases the risk of accidents," said Jim Vondale, director of Ford's Automotive Safety Office. "That is why we support a nationwide ban on handheld texting while driving and why Ford has developed hands-free and voice-activated technologies to allow drivers to remain connected, but to do so while keeping their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road."
The survey shows that 67 percent of drivers said they believed voice-activated technology is a safe alternative to texting, and 76 percent said such a feature would be an appealing feature in a car.
The survey results come as the U.S. Department of Transportation is scheduled to host a summit on driver distraction in Washington, D.C., next week.
According to the survey, there is confusion among drivers over existing state laws prohibiting handheld cell phone use and/or texting while driving. Currently 18 states have enacted such bans but nearly 40 percent of drivers in these states indicated they were unaware of the ban in their own state.
Research on driving solutions
According to a NHTSA-sponsored 100-car study conducted by Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, driver inattention that may involve looking away from the road for more than a few seconds is a factor in nearly 80 percent of accidents.
"A growing number of drivers are using handheld wireless communications and music-playing devices while driving," said Dr. Louis Tijerina, Ford senior technical specialist. "Research clearly shows that manual operation of those devices that takes the driver's eyes from the road for an extended period of time creates the kind of distraction that causes accidents."
Researchers Frank Drews and colleagues found evidence that attention patterns differ for drivers who text versus those who converse on a cell phone. In the latter case, the researchers say, "drivers apparently attempt to divide attention between a phone conversation and driving, adjusting the processing priority of the two activities depending on task demands." But texting requires drivers to switch their attention from one task to the other. When such attention-switching occurs as drivers compose, read, or receive a text, their overall reaction times are substantially slower than when they're engaged in a phone conversation. The type of texting activity also appears to make a difference; in this study, reading messages affected braking times more than did composing them.
The hazards of texting while driving continue to receive broad national and international attention as accident rates attributed to this practice increase. As a result, a growing number of U.S. cities and states, as well as Canadian provinces, ban texting while operating a vehicle. Drews et al. noted that according to CTIA (www.ctia.org), more than 1 trillion text messages were sent in 2008 in the United States alone. To find why and how much drivers are impaired during texting, the researchers engaged 20 men and 20 women between the ages of 19 and 23 in both a single task (straight driving) and a dual task (driving and texting) in a high-fidelity simulator. The participants, experienced texters with an average of 4.75 years of driving experience, received and sent messages while the researchers observed their brake onset time, following distance, lane maintenance, and collisions.
The crash risk attributable to texting is substantial. One possible explanation is that drivers who text tend to decrease their minimum following distance and also experience delayed reaction time. For example, in the Drews et al. study, drivers' median reaction time increased by 30% when they were texting and 9% when they talked on the phone, compared with their performance in a driving-only condition.
Notwithstanding the safety risk of texting while driving, previous research by Drews and colleagues at the University of Utah -- not to mention crash data and widespread legislation -- makes clear that using a phone while driving is dangerous.
In 2002, the state enacted a law against negligent and distracted driving, but Assistant Safety Commissioner Earl Sweeney says that law is tougher to enforce than the texting ban because police must prove distracted drivers knew their actions were negligent in putting others at risk. The distracted driving law more typically is used to ticket drivers for failing to clear snow from vehicle roofs and windshields in the winter, he said. The snow flying off the cars is a hazard to other drivers. The fine is a minimum of $250 with a maximum of $500 for a first offense.
NEW HAMSHIRE text messaging law enforced beginning of january.