The cellphone paradox - where are all the accidents?

I've elaborated on that very question earlier in this thread. The short version is that most of the 'studies' are crap designed to prove cell phones are dangerous thru a variety of nonsensical study protocols. You want to prove pianos are dangerous? Do a study where one person puts their head under the upraised and held in place by the stick "hood" of the piano then simulate a magnitude 6 earthquake. You'll find pianos to be quite dangerous.

No, there is a LOT of data. And contrary to the theorizing of the alarmists, there is no REAL WORLD evidence that the literal explosion of cell phone use has caused even a blip in accident rates. A few anecdotes of 'I saw Santa on his cell phone and he drove his sleigh right into the side of the chimney" don't prove that cell phones are some special case of distraction that should be outlawed while we still allow the carrying of chatty passengers, the eating of food, the application of lipstick, and the fiddling with CDs and MP3 players.

So using a cell phone should be much more dangerous AND result in a SIGNIFICANT increase in accidents over the past 20 years as the use of cell phones has exploded. Yet there isn't the slightest evidence of that in the accident data.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 01:10:23 -0500, ceg wro= te:

Mythbusters on the Science Channel just aired a test of hands free= =

vs. hands on cell phone use while driving. All but one test subject failed their simulator tes= t =

either by crashing or getting lost. Thirty people took the test. The show aired 9:30 CDT on August 16.

-- =

Using Opera's mail client:

From my standpoint, there are essentially no new accidents. One distraction has replaced another. It's even possible that people who in the past would have fallen asleep did not today because they were on their cell phone and that engagement kept them awake. But no one knows.... How do you quantify and categorize accidents that didn't happen?

And if everyone had DRL's accidents would be reduced another 30%. And if everyone had ABS another 25%. And if everyone had drivers Ed, another 10%. And if tire laws were more stringent we could reduce accidents another 15% and if every state had mandatory inspections another 10%. By the time we get done with all our "improvements" we won't need to manufacture new cars, the accident rate will be negative and new cars will be spontaneously popping out of the road.

What if the same character flaw exists in people that not only contributes to them being drunk drives, but also contributes to being more easily distracted while driving?

From 1985 to 2010 there are roughly 1000 times more cell phones. If in your morning commute in 1985 you were endangered on your 20 mile commute by 5 people with car phones, by 2010 you would be endangered by 5000 people with them. The roads should be awash in blood.

But lets talk in terms of something more visible. If the same ratio is applied to those truck tires that fly apart, if in 1985 you saw a truck tire fly apart once in a YEAR, in 2010 you would be seeing over

2 of them fly apart EVERY DAY.

1985 340,213 1986 681,825 1987 1,230,855 1988 2,069,441 1989 3,508,944 1990 5,283,055 1991 7,557,148 1992 11,032,753 1993 16,009,461 1994 24,134,421 1995 33,758,661 1996 44,042,992 1997 55,312,293 1998 69,209,321 1999 86,047,003 2000 109,478,031 2001 128,374,512 2002 140,766,842 2003 158,721,981 2004 182,140,362 2005 207,896,198 2006 233,000,000 2008 262,700,000 2009 276,610,580 2010 300,520,098

That's easy.

1) the world is full of control freaks that live for ways to make other people toe the line (usually arbitrarily drawn) whether those other people need to or not. 2) Gvt wants as many laws as it can possibly have regardless of need. That is clear by the fact that they add thousands of laws while at the same time eliminating virtually no law no matter how antiquated and inapplicable it is to modern society.

You see it in the newsgroups all the time. Someone "thinks" X is bad and wants to make it illegal. They have ZERO data showing it's bad but they are sure it is and that's all they need to criminalize it. These same moronic nanny's are the same kind of people who love to get elected to home owners associations and gvt.

Gee, 18 months hardly seems like enough....

The first link is fact free fluff.

Here's all you need to know about the second, a quote from one of their studies...

"Effects of phone use on driving performance when drivers are in their own vehicles are unknown. "

That's right, they have ZERO idea whether the research even models the REAL WORLD. ALL they know is in UNreal fake scenarios you can get people to do the wrong thing when that's what you set out to find.

This "cellphone paradox" is similar in that there seems to be an absence of evidence of actual accident rates going up.

I don't disagree.

The absence of evidence of cellphone use causing accidents is not evidence of absence.

I don't disagree.

Yet, it's still a paradox because common wisdom would dictate that accidents *must* be going up (but they're not).

Hence the paradox.

I think *some* statistics regarding car accidents *are* skewed, and, in particular, any statistic that assigns a partial cause to the fact that a cellphone was in the vehicle.

It's sort of like when they find an empty beer bottle in the vehicle, they may ascribe it to an "alcohol" related category.

The problem here is that *every* car in the USA (well, almost every car) has at least one cellphone per person over the age of about 15.

So, *every* accident can easily be ascribed to the category of "cellphone" related.

However, if we just look at actual accident numbers, I think those are very good statistics, because they accidents are easy to accurately report.

1. Police are required to report them when they are involved,
2. Insurance companies probably report them when a claim is made,
3. Drivers are required to report them in most states, etc.

You'll note that I *asked* for better data, but nobody (yet) has provided better accident statistics than what the government shows.

One person provided a statistic from the UK which showed that cellphone *use* was extremely low in UK drivers, but nothing more than that has been provided.

I'm not afraid of data. But nobody seems to have better data than what I found.

One person noted that the accidents in a few years didn't go down (they were flat), but nobody can show reliable data yet that the accidents are going up.

So, the paradox remains.

This scenario is already well accounted for.

It would show up in the total accident statistic.

So we already accounted for this scenario before we even started this thread as it's counted in the government statistics already.

I asked for *better* statistics, but, so far, nobody has shown any.

I'm not afraid of data.

But, what I found is apparently the best we have for total accidents, year over year, in the USA.

You'll notice that I have been very careful to distinguish between the two words:

1. Ownership, and,
2. Usage.

The *assumption* is that greater ownership means greater usage, but, someone already posted a UK statistic which refutes that fact.

That statistic, as I recall, was something like only 1.5% of the population were dumbshits that drove while using the cellphone.

So, it may just be that the dumbshits who cause accidents are dumbshits who cause accidents no matter what. If it isn't a cellphone, it would be something else.

At least that explanation would solve the paradox.

This one ??

It's like all the other ridiculously done "tests" of cell phone distraction. They literally FORCE someone to remain talking on the phone while at the same time telling them to do this or that. Normal people don't try and parallel park while on a phone being asked to listen to a nonsense sentence and immediately repeat it back to them while also trying to parallel park with their free hand.

I found one supposedly real world study that found new drivers were distracted by cell phones, not really a surprise as they are distracted by everything as the study confirmed.

The study found that experienced drivers were not affected by talking on the phone but said they were affected by dialing them but didn't say how much. The fact that talking on the phone didn't cause them problems was not what they expected of course and the article goes to some pains to point out that it is at odds with "other studies". Yeah, because the other studies are the dumb ones like Myth busters did.

The bottom line is driving is a skill and like any skill you get better with experience. And with experience you can use a cell phone with no more hazard then any number of other things people do in their cars. But the powers that be are determined to demonize cell phone use and I think the main reason is because you can SEE other people using cell phones and that just pisses them off.