This Sunday's New York times had an interesting article: Dismissing the Risks of a Deadly Habit. Neither Drivers Nor Lawmakers Want to Stop Cellphone Use Behind the Wheel. The article summarized a variety of studies and anecdotes involving driving while chatting or texting on mobile devices. A most important conclusion involved the statistical equivalent of risk:
Consider that carefully. First, chatting on the cell phone is a lot like the influence of alcohol. Second, people think that they can mitigate the risk, but in fact it doesn't work. As for the distraction, most people will say that it doesn't affect them. This is analogous to how people often deal with alcohol and driving, saying that they are already a good enough driver, or that they are better drivers than other people, so it's OK.
The point it, us humans are very bad at judging risk, chance, and economics. Risk is viewed through statistics and their correct application to situations. Actuaries are very good at this, the layman is not. As individuals, we tend to weight risks based on experience, wishful thinking, deductive reasoning, emotions, and societal standards. We also don't extend the risk inherent in one action to ancillary actions.
Let's come back to drunk driving. Alcohol has always been viewed as a moral transgression. Most people believe it is completely natural to consume, but medical evidence, childhood upbringing, and laws impress in us a sinful element to alcohol. Thus, it followed quite naturally that laws were passed against its consumption by minors, and against its concomitant use in daily life (driving, working, public drunkedness, etc.). There was, of course, lots of statistical evidence that drunk driving increased the risk of accidents and fatalities. But it took what was basically a second temperance movement (MADD) to bring the current DUI legislation. Before, driving under the influence was a slap on the wrist type of offence. With an advocacy group playing on our fears and cultural undertones, were we finally able to restrict this practice. And with it, laws were enacted that went far and beyond impaired driving to include the National Minimum Drinking Age act, and tightened control of liquor control boards. It took a series of emotional pleas that played on our moral upbringing and fears to bring about change. I submit that the statistics alone could not have affected it.
So we come back to cell-phone driving. Currently, there is great evidence that talking on mobile devices impairs driving, and leads to unnecessary injury and death. The practice applies to many more people than DUI. But only a handful of states have any legislation to deal with it. Most are only slaps on the wrists of offenders. There is no moral stigma against talking on the phone while driving, nor is there in most situation. At the most, a person talking on the phone is an annoyance. But we all use phones, and in fact, there is much more pressure to use a phone than to not use it. Imagine if you don't pick up the phone and it is your boss asking you where the copy of the investor report is located. Imagine if it is your wife calling you to pick up the kids at soccer on your way home. Besides, most people would rather be on the phone than repeating the traffic laden commute for the thousandth time. Everybody recognizes that being on the phone, even a hands-free requires some attention, and may require removing a hand from the wheel, or looking to the floor underneath the passenger seat where the iPhone slid off and is blaring away Thriller because it's the honey on the other end. Most people will say, on the margin, that the increased risk is negligible, and therefore take it each and every time. But it does add up, and eventually something happens. The question we have to ask ourselves with any riskis: is it worth it? Because answering the phone has many more immediate and concrete benefits--or fewer drawbacks, we answer it. The potential for an accident is never in our minds, and carries no weight whatsoever until we have T-boned an unsuspecting driver because we missed a red light.
So are the benefits of using that time in your car to communicate great enough to offset overall the risks that we take to do it? We got along before without cell-phones. Maybe it's time to shorten our two hour commutes.
But before long, if we don't address the problem itself, we are going to let emotion and greed get the better of us, and then we will have one positive change come along with ten negatives.
Extensive research shows the dancers of distracted driving. Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol lever, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated. Research also shows that hands-free devices do not eliminate the risks, and may worsen them by suggesting that the behavior is safe.
Consider that carefully. First, chatting on the cell phone is a lot like the influence of alcohol. Second, people think that they can mitigate the risk, but in fact it doesn't work. As for the distraction, most people will say that it doesn't affect them. This is analogous to how people often deal with alcohol and driving, saying that they are already a good enough driver, or that they are better drivers than other people, so it's OK.
The point it, us humans are very bad at judging risk, chance, and economics. Risk is viewed through statistics and their correct application to situations. Actuaries are very good at this, the layman is not. As individuals, we tend to weight risks based on experience, wishful thinking, deductive reasoning, emotions, and societal standards. We also don't extend the risk inherent in one action to ancillary actions.
Let's come back to drunk driving. Alcohol has always been viewed as a moral transgression. Most people believe it is completely natural to consume, but medical evidence, childhood upbringing, and laws impress in us a sinful element to alcohol. Thus, it followed quite naturally that laws were passed against its consumption by minors, and against its concomitant use in daily life (driving, working, public drunkedness, etc.). There was, of course, lots of statistical evidence that drunk driving increased the risk of accidents and fatalities. But it took what was basically a second temperance movement (MADD) to bring the current DUI legislation. Before, driving under the influence was a slap on the wrist type of offence. With an advocacy group playing on our fears and cultural undertones, were we finally able to restrict this practice. And with it, laws were enacted that went far and beyond impaired driving to include the National Minimum Drinking Age act, and tightened control of liquor control boards. It took a series of emotional pleas that played on our moral upbringing and fears to bring about change. I submit that the statistics alone could not have affected it.
So we come back to cell-phone driving. Currently, there is great evidence that talking on mobile devices impairs driving, and leads to unnecessary injury and death. The practice applies to many more people than DUI. But only a handful of states have any legislation to deal with it. Most are only slaps on the wrists of offenders. There is no moral stigma against talking on the phone while driving, nor is there in most situation. At the most, a person talking on the phone is an annoyance. But we all use phones, and in fact, there is much more pressure to use a phone than to not use it. Imagine if you don't pick up the phone and it is your boss asking you where the copy of the investor report is located. Imagine if it is your wife calling you to pick up the kids at soccer on your way home. Besides, most people would rather be on the phone than repeating the traffic laden commute for the thousandth time. Everybody recognizes that being on the phone, even a hands-free requires some attention, and may require removing a hand from the wheel, or looking to the floor underneath the passenger seat where the iPhone slid off and is blaring away Thriller because it's the honey on the other end. Most people will say, on the margin, that the increased risk is negligible, and therefore take it each and every time. But it does add up, and eventually something happens. The question we have to ask ourselves with any riskis: is it worth it? Because answering the phone has many more immediate and concrete benefits--or fewer drawbacks, we answer it. The potential for an accident is never in our minds, and carries no weight whatsoever until we have T-boned an unsuspecting driver because we missed a red light.
So are the benefits of using that time in your car to communicate great enough to offset overall the risks that we take to do it? We got along before without cell-phones. Maybe it's time to shorten our two hour commutes.
"I'm on the phone from when I leave the Capitol to when I get home, and that's a two-hour drive," said Tad Jones, the majority floor leader in the Oklahoma House, who helped block the legislation [to ban cellphone use on the road]. "A lot of people who travel are used to using the phone."Unfortunately, Mr. Jones' job requires him to travel quite far, but for most of us we should think about how we commute if we then need to make up for it by zoning out while we operate 3 tons of lumbering steel. It's just another reason to use mass-transit, to advocate for transit in your area, to carpool, or to move closer to work. The American dream, to own a home, in fact restricts us from moving when jobs change every few years. We've made up for it with cars, and by trying to use the time in our increasingly long commutes, but that time can never be as good as being home, and it just makes us poorer drivers.
But before long, if we don't address the problem itself, we are going to let emotion and greed get the better of us, and then we will have one positive change come along with ten negatives.
