Taking the Measure

On July 1, useless laws went into effect in California and Washington, adding to useless laws already in effect in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, and Utah. I’m talking about laws that ban holding a phone to your ear while driving. These laws will possibly soon be complemented by ones that ban talking and texting while walking.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think people talking on cell phones while driving can be a menace. And I’m not going quite as libertarian as my colleague Paul Rako.

But unfortunately, the laws taking effect don’t address the real problem. (Of course, these laws do spur on the purchase of hands-free Bluetooth headsets, and I’m in favor of anything that encourages the sale of consumer electronics, even if it makes us stupid.)

Salon has the story in “Hang up and drive,” by Katharine Mieszkowski: “For years, psychologists who study driving and attention have argued that switching to ‘hands free’ is not a real solution to the hazards caused by yakking on the mobile in the car. ‘The impairments aren't because your hands aren't on the wheel. It's because your mind isn't the road,’ says David Strayer, professor of psychology at the University of Utah, whose research has found driving while talking on a cell phone to be as dangerous as driving drunk.”

Mieszkowski reports on MRI experiments that demonstrate that “When the voice in the headphones starts talking, researchers can see the parts of the brain devoted to driving get distracted.” One such part is “the parietal lobe, which, for instance, helps a driver make the car's trajectory fit the curvature of the road.”

Researchers have also found that drivers can’t turn-off or ignore conversation coming through them through a cell phone. Language processing begins automatically and can’t be interrupted to deal with difficult driving conditions.

Why is talking on a cell phone while driving more dangerous than talking with a passenger? “…there's a difference between talking to somebody in the car and on the phone,” Mieszkowski writes. “Most passengers in the car adjust their conversation to what's happening on the road, quieting down when traffic gets hectic or even pointing out hazards up ahead…. The person on the other end of a cell phone call might not know you're driving, much less be aware of the road conditions. ‘The difficulty is that the party on the other line has no sense of your driving situation and just yaks, and the driver elects to do it, too,’ explains Paul Allan Green, research professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, where he leads the Driver Interface Group.” In addition, Mieszkowski quotes Paul Atchley, professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, as saying, “Cell-phone conversations are more intense than in-car conversation.”

Finally, Mieszkowski notes that cell-phone chatter causes more traffic, because people on phones tend to drive more slowly and are less likely to pass slow moving vehicles. Mieszkowski quotes Strayer as saying, “That SOB on the cell phone is slowing you down, and making you late." Mieszkowski adds, "If about 10 percent of the people driving during rush hour are using a cell phone, the net effect is that the commute may be 10 percent slower.”

As for texting while driving, there shouldn’t need to be a law. While the perils of hands-free cell-phone conversation might not be immediately apparent, taking your eyes off the road to compose a text message while driving is just criminally negligent.

But it turns out, many texting-related accidents don’t involve texting while driving. The Wall Street Journal has the story in “Generation Text: Emailing on the Go Sends Some Users Into Harm's Way,” by Dionne Searcey. She writes, “A growing group of multitaskers are texting on the go, trying to manipulate the small keypads of a mobile phone or personal digital assistant while ambulatory. They obliviously ram into walls and doorways or fall down stairs. Out on the streets, they bump into lampposts, parked cars, garbage cans and other stationary objects…. Northwestern Memorial Hospital's emergency room has been ground zero in Chicago for texting goofs…. James Adams, Northwestern's chairman of emergency medicine, says he has treated patients involved in texting incidents nearly every day this summer. He says fallen texters are more prone to facial injuries: They tend to hold their devices close to their faces, so their hands are less likely to break their fall. ‘By the time their hands hit, their face immediately hits and they smash to the ground,’ Dr. Adams says.”

Is there a solution? Searcey writes, “In London, directory-services company 118 118, operated by The Number UK Ltd., began a publicity campaign in March, outfitting lampposts with padded bumpers in the East End to cut down on injuries to errant texters.” And ambulatory texters offer advice to each other. Searcey  quotes a user named JBEL as writing, "U gotta walk with ur chin @ about 45 degree angle, n u won't bump into nothing." Good advice, I’m sure, but not as good as “hang up and walk.”