Highway Accident Report by NTSB Texting

[dlgoff]

Highway Accident Report by NTSB...Texting

It's about time. Discuss please.

Ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices (other than those designed to support the driving task) for all drivers; (2) use the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration model of high visibility enforcement to support these bans; and (3) implement targeted communication campaigns to inform motorists of the new law and enforcement, and to warn them of the dangers associated with the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices while driving.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2011/gray_summit_mo/index.html

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

GPS ban I don't support, but texting is a problem. I see it all the time.

 

[dlgoff]

Hum. Wasn't thinking about GPS. I guess it can be distracting; on the order of looking at your speedometer?

 

[lisab]

Years ago, I reviewed this issue for my work. The research is quite clear: any sort of telephone conversation is distracting to drivers. When a driver talks on a phone, his or her attention narrows. Peripheral vision is dramatically reduced.

The research suggests the issue is not with the device, because it happens to drivers using "hands-free" phones, too.

The policy at my work was changed: no use of cell phones when driving, period.

My motto: "It can wait."

 

[Evo]

Hum. Wasn't thinking about GPS. I guess it can be distracting; on the order of looking at your speedometer?

Those GPS driving directions are the cause of accidents, you can't read a small digital map and drive. The ones that call out directions are better, but what happened to getting directions before you leave? Then if you get lost, pull off the road and stop and check directions. Same for people with a paper map, get off the road!

One of the most horrific recent fatalities is where a woman was texting and didn't notice that traffic ahead of her had stopped and she rear ended a car driven by a another woman, the victim woman's car burst into flames and the woman was burned to death, I posted that article here.

No excuse for texting and driving. None.

I would be all for a device that disabled texting from a moving vehicle.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

My wife drives the car from the passenger seat. Turn here, stop there, you should have taken that left turn at Albequerque, etc. Then I got a GPS. I tossed it out after the first week. Turn here, stop there, you should have taken that left turn at Albequerque, etc. It's a wonder we haven't all been rear ended.

 

[dlgoff]

The policy at my work was changed: no use of cell phones when driving, period.

My motto: "It can wait."

Exactly.

...but what happened to getting directions before you leave? Then if you get lost, pull off the road and stop and check directions.

That's the way I always did it, but what about the folks that can't even read a map (thinking voice GPS here)?

 

[dlgoff]

My wife drives the car from the passenger seat. Turn here, stop there, you should have taken that left turn at Albequerque, etc. Then I got a GPS. I tossed it out after the first week. Turn here, stop there, you should have taken that left turn at Albequerque, etc. It's a wonder we haven't all been rear ended.

Never had a GPS but plenty of wives. I know what you mean.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I didn't realize this wasn't already illegal everywhere. It is illegal in California. I know people who've gotten tickets for fiddling with their phones at red lights, even.

 

[Evo]

Passengers in cars are much more distracting than talking on cell phones. If you're talking on a cell phone, at least your eyes are on the road and not the passenger. People feel the need to make eye contact when they're talking to an actual person, so there is constant glancing at the "listener", then there is the need to look at the person you are speaking to to get that all important "facial and body language" feedback. Then when the passenger responds, there is that obligation to glance over continuously to give them "feedback". A cell phone has no feelings and doesn't need eye contact.

Second would be listening to music or even worse talk radio, your attention isn't on the road if you're lost in song or screaming at the radio. There should be silence when you are driving. Not to mention the inability to hear horns, screeching brakes, and sirens if you are listening to something else, usually too loud.

The worst is children in the car... Children whining, fighting, wanting things handed to them, taking things away from them. I've even witnessed women changing their baby's diapers while driving!

 

[dlgoff]

Evo. I agree with all these distractions as being a problem. But even "thinking about something" can have serious consequences. e.g. My daughter turned right onto a 65mph highway after stopping at the county road intersection. Got rear ended by an oncoming car in broad daylight. She said she didn't see the oncoming car. Eyes saw, brain didn't register.

 

[Pengwuino]

Could GPS devices be considered devices to "support the driving task"?

 

[Office_Shredder]

Passengers in cars are much more distracting than talking on cell phones. If you're talking on a cell phone, at least your eyes are on the road and not the passenger. People feel the need to make eye contact when they're talking to an actual person, so there is constant glancing at the "listener", then there is the need to look at the person you are speaking to to get that all important "facial and body language" feedback. Then when the passenger responds, there is that obligation to glance over continuously to give them "feedback". A cell phone has no feelings and doesn't need eye contact.

This is actually the opposite of true. For example
http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/JEP_A_2008.pdf

drivers showing a more pronounced tendency to drift during cell phone conversations compared to the passenger conversation condition

drivers in the cell phone condition were four times more likely to fail task completion than drivers in the passenger condition

The explanation that I've heard (and which I think sounds about right) is that passengers in the vehicle with you can see how you're doing in your surroundings and cease conversation when necessary (when executing turns, when traffic patterns shift, etc.) whereas somebody on a cell phone cannot.

 

[Evo]

This is actually the opposite of true. For example
http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/JEP_A_2008.pdf





The explanation that I've heard (and which I think sounds about right) is that passengers in the vehicle with you can see how you're doing in your surroundings and cease conversation when necessary (when executing turns, when traffic patterns shift, etc.) whereas somebody on a cell phone cannot.

Well there is actual quantified proof that passengers are more distracting.

Passengers drive motorists to distraction says AA Insurance survey
The most frequent cause of driver distraction is other people in the car, according to new survey from AA Insurance.

Chatting to passengers is the greatest source of driver distraction - worse than using new technologies such as iPods, DVDs and car navigation systems.

A parliamentary investigation into driving distractions has warned that hundreds of drivers may be at risk of crashing because of the growth in video, audio and other electronic devices, which are increasingly being used while driving. But the investigation also found that the greatest source of driver distraction was not technology related, it was interacting with other passengers, placing renewed pressure on the Bracks Government to restrict P-plate drivers from carrying multiple passengers.

"While there has been much media focus on driving while using a mobile phone, and concern about new technology in vehicles, a variety of everyday activities are likely to be the major contributors to distraction-related crashes," said Labor MP Craig Langdon, a member of Parliament's Road Safety Committee, which conducted the inquiry.

http://www.drive.com.au/editorial/articledetail.aspx?ArticleID=19571&vf=1

http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/Distracted_Driving/Documents/Distractions%20in%20Everyday%20Driving.pdf

See page 16

 

[Office_Shredder]

It's a bit unclear what that slideshow you posted is talking about. Is that just measuring how often such a distraction occurred without deciding on the severity of the distraction, or is it measuring how often an incident causes a distraction to a driver? It seems like it's measuring the former, which isn't a good way on deciding whether activities should be banned or not. Especially since the next slide indicates that people spent more time on their cell phones than talking to passengers anyway.

The Australian study you posted about has no numbers to talk about, and it's not explicitly made clear whether it's percent of time spent being distracted or severity of distraction (although in this case it seems by the language to be more likely talking about severity of distraction).

I find linking to original studies more effective because there's no ambiguity as to their measuring systems or methodologies

 

[Evo]

It's a bit unclear what that slideshow you posted is talking about. Is that just measuring how often such a distraction occurred without deciding on the severity of the distraction, or is it measuring how often an incident causes a distraction to a driver? It seems like it's measuring the former, which isn't a good way on deciding whether activities should be banned or not. Especially since the next slide indicates that people spent more time on their cell phones than talking to passengers anyway.

The Australian study you posted about has no numbers to talk about, and it's not explicitly made clear whether it's percent of time spent being distracted or severity of distraction (although in this case it seems by the language to be more likely talking about severity of distraction).

I find linking to original studies more effective because there's no ambiguity as to their measuring systems or methodologies

It's an actual study, did you read it, or did you just glance at one slide?

And here is a list of studies.

http://www.drivingtips.org/Distracted-Driving.html

In case you aren't going to read it, you can just browse the results here.

Most of the information you hear or read about distracted driving is focused on cell phone use while driving. Evidence shows cell phone use is neither the most dangerous of distractions for drivers, nor is it the most common cause of car collisions.


In a Virginia Tech 100 car study, The most dangerous distracted driving activity was reaching for a moving object, making a crash 8 times more likely, while cell phone use was no higher than 2 1/2 times more likely to cause a collision.



Also crash statistics from at least two states, New York and Kentucky show cell phone use as a cause of much less than 1% of reported collisions.


In 2008 New York crash statistics showed inattention or driving distracted as the cause of 18% of collisions, while cell phone use was involved in only .3% of car crashes.

Kentucky 2008 crash data showed driver inattention or distracted driving as causing 24% of collisions and cell phone use as causing .8% of crashes.



It is worth noting New york has had laws against cell phone use while driving since 2001.

Kentucky just passed their first cell phone ban for drivers under 18, April 25th 2010, after these 2008 crash stats were reported.

Notice reported cell phone use in crashes is still under 1% in Kentucky even with cell phone use for all drivers being legal. (though the rate is slightly more than double that of New york.)

A NHSTA 2002 survey found .1% of drivers involved in collisions attributed the crash to cell phone use.

The conclusion here is, while Cell Phone use should not be ignored as a contribution to distracted driving collisions,other driving distractions are more common and actually cause more collisions than cell phone use.



Virginia Commonwealth university study in 2003 showed Looking at the scene of a crash caused the most collisons (16%) driver fatigue 12%, looking at other outside scenery 10%, passenger distraction 9%, while cell phone distraction was the cause of only 5% of the crashes.

NHSTA reports another 2003 study shows an outside object caused 23% of crashes while passengers caused 20% and cell phones 3.6%.

 

[dlgoff]

Seems like it's not a case of whether it's a distraction, but to what degree the distraction is.

As in TEXTING. Just sayin'.

 

[Evo]

Seems like it's not a case of whether it's a distraction, but to what degree the distraction is.

As in TEXTING. Just sayin'.

Texting has got to be the worst, it's reading and writing, you can't do both of those and drive safely. Not to mention you only have one hand to steer with. But talking on a cell phone is the least dangerous activity, based on actual results.

 

[dlgoff]

Texting has got to be the worst, it's reading and writing, you can't do both of those and drive safely. Not to mention you only have one hand to steer with. But talking on a cell phone is the least dangerous activity, based on actual results.

So it's like, "to take care of the most dangerous activity (texting), you have to remove the responsible device". Right?

 

[Evo]

So it's like, "to take care of the most dangerous activity (texting), you have to remove the responsible device". Right?

Yep. Like I said earlier, I'd be all for the ability to disbable texting from a moving device.

 

[dlgoff]

Yep. Like I said earlier, I'd be all for the ability to disbable texting from a moving device.

Got it. I guess I got a bit distracted by Jimmy before posting my earlier reply to you and lisab.

 

[Office_Shredder]

It's an actual study, did you read it, or did you just glance at one slide?

It's a slideshow about a study. Looking over it again I found the original study's title in the second slide so went and got it
http://www.aaafoundation.org/pdf/distraction.pdf

This records how often crashes are caused by various activities from data between 1995 and 1999. It doesn't attempt to control for how often these activities occur. This would be like saying only 7% of accidents occur with a person over the limit behind the wheel, whereas 10% of distractions in the accidents they pulled data from were from passenger distractions, so passengers are as likely to cause an accident as driving drunk.

And here is a list of studies.

http://www.drivingtips.org/Distracted-Driving.html

Virginia Tech study:

The odds ratio for passenger in adjacent seat was also significantly different from 1.0; however,
it was significantly lower than 1.0 indicating that it is actually safer to have a passenger in the 30
vehicle than to drive alone. This may be because passengers are often also scanning the
environment for hazards and may alert the driver to a hazard that he or she may have miss

Cell phone usage on the other hand was far more dangerous than not being on the cell phone

As noted, New York had a law against using your cell phone while driving, and those statistics were generated by police reports. So if you're talking on your cell phone and get in an accident, you probably just hang up and hide the phone and tell everyone you were distracted by something else.

The Kentucky statistics have the same self-reporting problem. Although it was not illegal at the time in Kentucky to be on your cell phone, there was certainly a stigma against it that might cause people to lie. Also it just shows what % of accidents are caused by cell phones, not how much cell phones increase or decrease your chance of getting into an accident.

The Virginia Tech study literally recorded 100 people driving vehicles and kept track of their every movement and activity in that time period. It's clearly the most rigorous attempt to quantify risk (far more than the study that I posted I would say) and finds that passengers make you safer than driving alone.

 

[Evo]

Here

U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

In the 1995-1999 analysis, approximately 70 percent of the reported distractions were inside the vehicle, with the remaining 30 percent occurring outside the vehicle. Passengers and audio devices were the most prevalent reported distractions. Among the specific sources cited in the 2000-2003 analysis were an outside object/person/event (23.7%) and another vehicle occupant (20.8%). These were followed by using or reaching for an object (5.2%), a moving object inside the vehicle (3.7%), cell phone (3.6%), adjusting radio/cassette/CD (2.9%), eating/drinking (2.8%), adjusting climate control (1.5%), and smoking (1%).

And I seriously do not know what part of this you can't read.

Stuttset al. (2001) -Sources of Driver Distraction –Phase I
Analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's
Crashworthiness Data System (CDS)from 1995 through 1999, a total of 32,303 vehicles involved in crashes attributed to driver distraction. The specific sources of distractions identified were as follows:

Cell phone use 1.5%
Other occupant in vehicle 10.9%

statistics page 17

http://www.distracteddriving.ca/english/documents/LeoTasca_000.pdf

This must be the 3rd or 4th time I have referred to the actual traffic accident reports, not some made up statistics, guesses, or interpretations.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Again, self reported distractions aren't very reliable. People can always lie. More importantly, it doesn't actually quantify risk change associated with that activity. If 3.6% of accidents were caused by cell phones, but 100% of the time that people were on cell phones they got into an accident, would you still be arguing that cell phones are safe? Of course not. Distraction reporting data alone is not sufficient to decide on safety. You need more, and the studies posted (from both you AND me) which attempt a more in depth analysis conclude that passengers are safer than cell phones, and in the study you posted, having passengers was safer than driving alone!

 

[Evo]

Again, self reported distractions aren't very reliable. People can always lie. More importantly, it doesn't actually quantify risk change associated with that activity. If 3.6% of accidents were caused by cell phones, but 100% of the time that people were on cell phones they got into an accident, would you still be arguing that cell phones are safe? Of course not. Distraction reporting data alone is not sufficient to decide on safety. You need more, and the studies posted (from both you AND me) which attempt a more in depth analysis conclude that passengers are safer than cell phones, and in the study you posted, having passengers was safer than driving alone!

The first *study* I linked to was actual in car recordings with monitoring devices, no self reporting.

http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/Distracted_Driving/Documents/Distractions%20in%20Everyday%20Driving.pdf

The topic here is texting, I think we can agree that texting while driving should be banned and stop going off topic to *talking*?

 

[Astronuc]

It's about time. Discuss please.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2011/gray_summit_mo/index.html

Attending to some other activity while driving is reckless endangerment. One of the earliest homicides related to cell phone use was a guy in Pennsylvania who ran a stop sign (or light) because he wasn't paying attention. He killed a child when he broadsided another car.


Some statistics: http://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cell-phone/statistics.html


Even more, car accidents remain the number one cause of death for people ages 3 to 34.
http://www.pittsburghwrongfuldeathblog.com/2011/05/number-of-us-highway-fatalities-dropped-last-year.shtml

 

[AlephZero]

This must be the 3rd or 4th time I have referred to the actual traffic accident reports, not some made up statistics, guesses, or interpretations.

Reported by whom, to whom, and for what purpose? Voluntary information, or under police caution, or under oath in court? How many of the sample of 32,303 accidents were wrongly assessed as being caused by distraction? How many other accidents were wrongly assessed as NOT being caused by distraction, or not included for some other reason?

Not to mention the fact that the percentages on the chart only add up to about 60%. What were the other 40% of distracted drivers doing?

I checked the PDF, and didn't find the answers to any of those questions. It may be official data, and it may be the best available, but neither of those are reasons why it is self-evidently GOOD data.

 

[Evo]

Reported by whom, to whom, and for what purpose? Voluntary information, or under police caution, or under oath in court? How many of the sample of 32,303 accidents were wrongly assessed as being caused by distraction? How many other accidents were wrongly assessed as NOT being caused by distraction, or not included for some other reason?

Not to mention the fact that the percentages on the chart only add up to about 60%. What were the other 40% of distracted drivers doing?

I checked the PDF, and didn't find the answers to any of those questions. It may be official data, and it may be the best available, but neither of those are reasons why it is self-evidently GOOD data.

They were in car recording devices. Uhm, it says National Safety Council.

The other site is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Hey, if you have any *actual* onboard recording studies with different results, please post them.

Otherwise, this is off topic.

 

[Office_Shredder]

The first *study* I linked to was actual in car recordings with monitoring devices, no self reporting.

http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/Distracted_Driving/Documents/Distractions%20in%20Everyday%20Driving.pdf

If you go to the study it says they take crash data from police reports
http://www.aaafoundation.org/pdf/distraction.pdf

I don't see anything in it about recording what is happening in vehicles (although it cites the problems with self reported data that I have brought up and suggests that more empirical testing is needed)


The Virginia Tech study you posted in that list of links you gave on the other hand did put recordings in cars.

The title of the thread has the word texting in it but the NTSB report itself simply mentions the use of electronic devices with no reference to whether you're making phone calls or texting. The Virginia Tech study doesn't mention texting explicitly but if we assume it's somewhere between dialing a phone and reading, it's basically more dangerous than anything else you can do inside your vehicle (using table 2.5 on page 30) so banning it doesn't immediately imply that other activities like eating or drinking should be banned. On the other hand talking on the phone was less dangerous than things like reaching for a non-moving object (e.g. the radio) and eating

 

[gizmo6]

It's already a law in NZ that you can't text or phone whilst driving. I even saw a guy texting while riding a motorcycle once WTF!