Cell Phone Users Are More Distracted When Driving, even when not using phone.

Dalls Morning News ^ | July 1, 2003 | PR NewsWire

[FairOpinion]

MERIDEN, Conn., July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- According to an analysis by Response Insurance of their national driving survey, people who use cell phones when driving are more likely to be distracted from the road even when they are not talking on a phone. The results indicate there may be a "distracted-driver personality" type behind the wheel. The Response Insurance National Driving Distractions Survey compared attentiveness of cell phone users to non-users when not talking on a phone. When asked a series of questions about different topics that might take their attention from the road, people who use cell phones were significantly more likely to be distracted when thinking about every-day issues and concerns than drivers who do not use cell phones while driving. When compared to drivers who do not talk on cell phones, drivers who use cell phones are 56% more likely to be distracted behind the wheel while thinking about what to eat; 36% more likely to be distracted thinking about relationship issues; 32% more likely to be distracted when thinking about their jobs; 27% more likely to be distracted when thinking about health concerns; 21% more likely to be distracted when thinking about family issues, and 19% more likely to be distracted when thinking about money issues or bills. If, as the survey indicates, certain people are more likely to be distracted behind the wheel, recent attention to cell phone use may be missing the larger problem of driver inattention. "From the time we issued our first survey, we said that cell phones were only one part of a societal trend of multi-tasking while driving and a general lack of attention to the road," said Mory Katz, Chairman of Response Insurance. "Our analysis points to what could be a chronic inattentiveness problem for a specific group of drivers. We hope this information sets the stage for additional research and much more driver education in this area."

Source: Response Insurance Response Insurance is a direct-to-the customer auto insurance company that sponsored the survey that launched the national debate on driving distractions and cell phone use. That 1999 survey provided the first detailed and scientific look at the distracting nature of various activities and their likelihood of contributing to accidents.

About the Survey Analysis: This new analysis is based on a statistically valid survey that included 1,046 interviews conducted among a nationally representative sample of adults 18 years of age and included 525 drivers who use cell phones and 420 non- users. The margin of error for this study is +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. The survey was sponsored by Response Insurance in 2001, developed with Leflein Associates, and fielded by Opinion Research Corporation International. The analysis was conducted June 2003.

Contact: Ray Palermo Response Insurance 500 South Broad Street Meriden CT 06450 Toll Free Tel: 888-288-6080, Ext. 7251 E-mail: rpalermo@response.com Off-hour Pager: 1-800-759-8888 / PIN: 1196453

[FairOpinion]

In other words, "it's the driver, stupid".

Some people drive responsibly, and those continue to do so, when using a cell phone occasionally, others don't pay attention to driving, even when not doing anything else overtly to distract themselves.

This is what some of us have been saying all along, but the government, in its infinite wisdom makes laws against cell phones. How about making distracted drivers illegal?

[jrawk]

Cell Phones are ubiquitous and even more prevalent as the age of the driver is reduced.

There are many correlations that explain this that have nothing to do with cell phones.

I would love to know what methods they used to exclude the probability that younger drivers aren't as attentive?

Or the seven others I am sure one could come up with if they sat and thought about it.

This is a non-story. In fact I now declare the 77% of stories involving Cell Phones, Driving and Statistics actually point out that a lot of people are not the best drivers in the world and also own cell phones.

-- lates
-- jrawk

[Dr Warmoose]

How about making distracted drivers illegal?

Quick! You are a police officer on the road in your patrol car - how do you determine if a person is "distacted" when they are thinking about their relationship?

Now you are the prosecuting attorney ready to present your case before the judge. What evidence do you use?

Or are we going to use evidence like they did in the movie Minority Report?

[JohnnyZ]

How about making distracted drivers illegal?

How about charging them appropriate insurance rates? I'd be willing to bet credit score, among other things, correlates pretty well with "distractedness". But government seem to be hell-bent to prevent loss score and other factors being used in policy rating; they want to keep up a system where the good drivers pay to subsidize the accident-prone ones.

[JohnnyZ]

government = state governments

[Publius6961]

The results indicate there may be a "distracted-driver personality" type behind the wheel.

Golly...
All this time we've been calling them idiots.

People who don't know their limitations.
Indeed, who don't have the mental horsepower to know that limitations exist.

[FairOpinion]

"How about making distracted drivers illegal?"

"...how do you determine if a person is "distacted""
---

I was being sarcastic. The point is that they should make laws and stop you or not based on your DRIVING, i.e. are you observing stop signs, signaling when you change lanes, whether you are or are not weaving in and out of lanes, etc., NOT based on what you hold in your hand or what you may or may not be thinking.

[brianl703]

I see this all the time: The people who want to go faster than everyone else but who have poor depth perception or something, so their attempt at weaving through traffic consists of:

Getting right up on someone's bumper before realizing that the vehicle in front of them is going SLOWER than they are.

Then they hit the brakes, put on the turn signal, and (probably) depending on how close they've come to sideswiping someone lately, either start changing lanes without looking, almost sideswiping someone, OR they take 20 seconds to change lanes even though the lane they want into is empty.

It's almost like the concept of the side-view mirror is alien to them.

One of these idiots I saw a couple of weeks ago managed to get stuck behind a tractor-trailer with another tractor-trailer on his left (he was in the far right lane).

More often than not it's the people who have "commanding views of the road ahead" who do this. As though being higher up and therefore able to see further will help what is clearly a problem between the seat and steering wheel...

[firebrand]

LOL. They are trying to figure out whom they can call next! Obsession! Addiction! They must be constantly In Touch.

[stumpy]

Quick, your a cop in your car answereing your radio and trying to drive and write down where your call is. Are you distracted while driving?????

[RightWhale]

What about those who post to FR while driving, or those who format articles to post to FR using HTML? Would they be in the distracted category as a group?

[savedbygrace]

A survey? They claim to be able to make these conclusions based on a survey? How silly.

[Freedom4US]

You know, military pilots routinely fly at night, under night vision goggles, and talk on the radio at the same time, as well as monitoring air speed, altitude, TGT, and a host of other important indications, while avoiding dangerous obstacles, navigating to precise locations, etc.

Why am I thinking the problem is with idiot drivers, not necessarily a problem with cell-phones.. Similar to firearms, our spineless politicians will do nothing material to correct the issue, but spew "expert" studies such as this, and villify the cell phone.

[FairOpinion]

Exaclty. It's always the fault of the inanimate objects: cell phones, guns, never the fault of idiots, so they keep regulating those who are sensible and CAN drive and talk or chew gum at the same time.

What they need is to bring back personal responsibility and common sense, instead of passing more and more laws regulating those who don't need it.

[davisdoug]

That's for sure. I was driving in the carpool lane this afternoon with my pregnant wife and all of the sudden the Saturn (not an SUV) next to me just "came over" while the senile sh** was not even looking. I almost hit the median, slammed on the brakes and blared the horn. Idiot did not even look back. Had nothing to do with cell phones. I sense a rate increase coming for cell phone users!

[FairOpinion]

Thank God you and your wife are OK.

These days you have to be telpathic and try to figure out what some idiot is going to do. Those are the ones they should get off the road, not people who use cell phone AND drive responsibly.

[Dr Warmoose]

Quick, your a cop in your car answereing your radio and trying to drive and write down where your call is. Are you distracted while driving?????

No, because I am a government employee and therefore I am never god-like, not distracted by listening to talk radio, Dispatch, the radar gun, running license tags on the computer, all the while talking to the woman who phoned in the domestic dispute complaint, taking notes and talking her out of her hysteria. You private sector mortals though can't handle driving while being on hold.

Not only while I have all those things go on at the same time, I am going Code-2, at least 15 over the speed of traffic through residential streets.

That's why I can have a gun and speed through town and you can't.

[davisdoug]

I commute 150 miles a day and keep my "eyes peeled" constantly for upcoming events. The funny thing was this guy was a solo driver who almost slammed into me in the car pool lane. He stayed in the lane and continued driving. Just wished there was a CHP handy to deliver his $270 prize.

[FreedomCalls]

You know, military pilots routinely fly at night, under night vision goggles, and talk on the radio at the same time, as well as monitoring air speed, altitude, TGT, and a host of other important indications, while avoiding dangerous obstacles, navigating to precise locations, etc.

How much training do they get to do that? We have cut back on what little driver training kids used to get in high school. Once you get a license at age 16, you can live to be 100 without once having to go back and get additional training. Can you say that about your fighter pilots?

[Dr Warmoose]

You know, military pilots routinely fly at night...

And there is a lot more hell to pay if things go wrong. Unlike the airbag/seatbelt/rollover-cage/crushpanels/impact bumper equpped car that automagically calls OnStar the instant anything goes wrong.

Oops! Do I do that? Here is my insurance card.