Re: Traffic accidents go down as cell phone usage goes up

dorayme wrote, on Mon, 28 Apr 2014 10:30:53 +1000:

The "common sense" that most people have says that rotor-related vibration upon braking is caused by "warped rotors"...

They're wrong. Dead wrong. But, you'll even find mechanics who think rotors are warping all the time, when almost none of the street-use rotors are distorting.

What's happening is usually brake force variation (BFV) or disc thickness variation (DTV) due to pad deposits - but try to tell that to someone with the standard iota of "common sense" who just *knows* that his brake rotors are (somehow, magically?)

*warped*.

The point here is that "common sense" is thrown out the window when it turns out, provably, that cell phone use has absolutely no effect (either way) on traffic accidents, just as cold weather can't possibly cause the common cold.

...

No one is disputing this, certainly not dorayme. It has not turned out your way though. It might but it is not clear at all. In the meantime, common sense needs to rule.

Jessie Williams wrote in news:ljjdvf$1q8$4 @solani.org:

Wow, have you not heard the enormus number of fewer miles driven because of the ecomominy???? that alone is reason for many fewer accidents itself. Anyone that thinks cell phones are not a hazzard on the road is a idiot. Radio`s, other passengers, ALL other distractions are a major problem, but people want them so they make execsuses. KB

Cell phones don't cause accidents. People using them when they shouldn't be, like while driving, cause accidents.

TJ

Exactly. There has been vigorous enforcement of the laws against drink driving and speeding combined with the dramatic improvement in motor vehicle safety starting with seat belts and now with air bags and electronic assistance with steering and braking. This far outweighs the observed, but small, influence of the increase in accidents due to hand held mobile phones.

There is ample evidence that a small percentage of accidents are caused by drivers using cell phones .

A study that analysed more than eight million actual hands-free phone calls placed over a period of five years found only two confirmed cases of crashes that occurred during phone use. 

two crashes, out of 8 *million* calls?

Some state highway authorities in the US have compiled detailed information on crash statistics and have specifically listed using a cell phone or two-way radio as a contributing cause for the crash.  For example, in Minnesota in 2007 ³Driver on Cell Phone or CB Radio² accounts for some 0.2% across single or multiple vehicle crashes across all age groups.  The Tennessee Department of Safety has data available from 2003 to 2007 using a ³Telephone or Two-Way Radio², which listed these factors as the cause of an accident in 0.35% in 2003; 0.32% in 2004; 0.36% in 2005; 0.37% in 2006 and 0.33% in 2007.

not only is it under 1%, but it's under 0.5%, just over 1/3rd of 1%.

if that were true then any time anyone used a cellphone while driving, they would crash and that simply does not happen.

this link was posted in another thread, which shows that cellphone use is an insignificant risk factor:

miles driven is also going up, although it did drop in the 70s due to the gas crisis.

Yes, I agree it should rank as one of the silliest statistics ever produced in this debate. There is no mention of the percentage of those calls that were made by drivers.

Everyone agrees that banning hand held phones is not going to make a large reduction in accidents. However, the research indicates that it will reduce accidents and deaths if the rule is enforced. What arguments are there for not banning them?

I'll make that argument.

Let me first say that as a regular bicyclist in traffic I just hate the damned texters drifting into my lane and meandering about in traffic. They look all deer-in-headlights when I thump their door panel.

That said, a law is about the least effective and most offensive approach imaginable. Like there aren't enough laws already? How's that 100 year old Heroin ban going?

In areas with telephone bans in cars, people use them anyway now. Banning telephones is a pointless exercise but I sure wish people would pay attention more.

true but even if all of them were made by the driver, it's still tiny.

not everyone.

some people believe the crap that's fed to them.

why not enforce things that actually matter?

if you thump anyone's door panel, it's your own damned fault for not looking where you're going.

bicyclists almost universally ignore traffic laws.

i can count on one hand how many bicyclists i've seen that actually stop at a red light and have a couple of fingers left over.

they routinely do whatever the hell they want, namely endangering cars. they do not realize that in a car versus bicycle collision, they will lose *big time*. the car will have a few scratches and they will be road pizza.

i have seen bicyclists sail through red lights causing cars to swerve and the idiots on the bicycle keep going as if nothing happened.

i've even seen bicyclists on limited access highways, where they are

*forbidden* and even worse, the idiot was traveling in the breakdown lane, where travel is prohibited.

no they won't.

speeding is a violation and yet everyone drives above the posted speed limit at one point or another.

Not really Patty. The downward trend was in evidence before cell use. We have alleged research showing cell use is as bad as driving drunk. And we supposedly know that 25% or more of accidents are caused by drunken driving. We also know that if you look at cell use it went from essentially zero 20 years ago to virtually everyone on the road now. Yet there isn't even a meaningful blip in the accident rate trend over all that time. These "other causes" you'd like to imagine have caused the reduction, well what are they? If they are so significant you ought to be able to name them and show research indicating just exactly what their continuation is. Yet there seems to be no one, not even the safety Nazi's, who can find this effect. One proposed cause that the safety Nazi's rallied around was the mandate for anti lock brakes they wanted. Yet when proper research was done it was found that the supposed benefit to anti lock brakes that was going to increase safety just wasn't there. Study after study showed that cars with ABS were in just as many accidents as the same cars without.

As to the research on cell phone safety, it's almost 100% hogwash research set up improperly. You had someone a cell phone and tell them to use it NOW as they drive around and then at the worst possible times in the driving cycle you spring a "crash' event on them at the same time as you have FORCED them to be using a cell phone. This completely goes against what these people would be doing in the real world, during the "worst possible times" in their driving cycle they would not continue talking on a cell phone because a researcher said they were supposed to be talking on a cell phone. No, when they hit the rain storm, or the traffic slowdown or whatever they would have stopped paying attention to the phone and paid attention to their driving. Would that be 100%, of course not, there will always be some tiny number of people who mess us, just like they always have from eating a burger, or tuning the radio, or changing the CD, or checking the baby in the back seat, etc. But these "research studies" are just horribly setup and their results are meaningless for application in the real world. If you did the same sort of study to see if you could safely walk around your house while on the telephone you'd find it's extremely dangerous to do so if the same sort of ridiculous research was done. They would have you on the phone while walking across the floor of a house you had never been in before with a hole cut in the floor while they distract your attention to the ceiling. That's the quality of these cell phone's are dangerous research studies.

Beware in trusting data from *mobile phone peak industry body* on this question!

Figures from the tobacco industry or the pharmaceutical industry or the mining industry etc. are sensibly treated with either disdain or wariness when the interests of these groups are at stake.

"keepyoureyesontheroad.org.au is provided by the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA). The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) is the peak industry body representing carriage service providers, handset manufacturers, retailers, infrastructure supplies and support industries."

OK. Is there no *good* way to conduct an experiment then? Or do we have to just keep combing though data collected and arguing on the basis of this or that?

You'd have to check the cell phone call records of all drivers in an accident. Won't happen. There's enough anecdotal evidence to make laws against it. Here in Illinois cells in cars must be hands free. Seems a good compromise.

However, when judging the effect cellphone use has on driver's ability to respond to an event this is exactly what you want to do. To say the driver would stop uing the phone before having an accident implies an ability to know the future.

Experiments usually have limitations. However, knowing the limitations does not mean the experiment can't present useful results. If one reads this documment, you can see the limitations being discussed, but results were still available, and interesting.

This document provides some information regarding conversing or dailing/hanging up a cellphone and how it related to crashes. See Appendix B. Let the flaming continue.

That's because they don't use cell phones :-) . Yet. Cheers, -- ...

In the USA, it's AT&T, again one of the big four mobile phone operators, who -- wishing to retain as many of its paying customers as possible -- urges folks to stay safe by *not* texting while driving. That despite the lucre coming from texts, at a penny or a dime a pop :-) .

Clearly, they'd rather lose the income from a couple of texts now and then but keep a continuing subscription fee coming in, than gain that small income but have the subscription stream dry up.

Cheers, -- tlvp