Cell Phones and Cars, I Finally Get It.

Last year California joined the many other states who will require drivers to use a hands-free headset in order to use their cell phones while driving (CA will start in 2008). I have never understood what the big deal was and really have always considered the idea to be silly. I mean, if you are going to outlaw holding a cell phone to your ear then why wouldn’t you outlaw eating, drinking (non-alcoholic of course), putting on makeup, listening to the radio, talking to a passenger, etc? I consider myself to be an above average driver and my perfect driving record will back that up. Even in the days before I started using a headset to talk on the phone I was always extra attentive as I realized that talking on the phone could be a distraction. At some points I would even go so far as to drop my phone just so I could change lanes in traffic not really caring if it hurt the feelings of the individual on the other side of the conversation. Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my bluetooth wireless headset. My issue has always been that I am being forced to use it.

Yet studies consistently come out that show that people distracted by using cell phones are more likely to be involved in some type of an accident more frequently than from any other type of distraction. A recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute showed that cell phones were the leading cause (by far!) of incidents in the cars they monitored during the study. I should point out that I hold most studies as being suspect until I see a bunch of different ones conducted using different methods by different organizations that all come to the same conclusion. So at this point, having done little to no research (i’ve only heard of 2 studies and I know there are many many more) I just assumed that all the studies were done by people with vested interests in cell phone headsets. This is somewhat of an exxageration of how I feel about studies but it’s not far off.

That was until the other day during my daily hellish commute in the ever exciting traffic of LA. I was behind a car that was swerving erratically. Normally I would suspect a drunk driver but it was 8:00 in the morning so I assumed that wasn’t the cause. My normal M.O. is to get around someone like that as fast and as stealthily as I can, so I proceeded to get in the next lane and pass. What I saw as I glanced over put everything into perspective.

I realized that my problem has been the assumption that everyone else is like the typical Crack Team Agent. I saw a women talking on her phone by holding the phone to her ear. There goes 1 hand. This woman also appeared to be a hand talker who, while they talk, must wave at least one hand about wildly to illustrate whatever point they are trying to make. There goes a second hand. Now unless I miscounted somewhere, that doesn’t leave any hands for actually steering her car, which is what caused her to swerve all over the place. She would only bother correcting the course of her car when she felt she got too close to the lane markers. We were only going about 20 mph but still… crazy.

I saw this again this past weekend as I drove to the IMAX theater to watch “300” for the second time. The woman in the car behind me was a hair talker, who had to twirl her hair around while she talked on the phone. Once again, unless we’ve started growing 3-armed people, she was 1 hand short of being able to steer her car and as a result was swerving behind me. At that point we were going about 40 so I was a little more worried about her hitting me or someone else. She was also a tailgater, either because she was distracted by the phone or just because she was an idiot, but the distinction is really meaningless. By the way, I think all people who drive so close to the car in front of them that they cant see the entire car all the way to the road (including the rear tires) are idiots.

Anyway, as far as the original topic goes, I now understand and support forcing the population to be safe when they can’t be bothered to save themselves. At least in this particular case since it seems to directly affect my ability to survive a seemingly harmless 25 mile commute.

4 thoughts on “Cell Phones and Cars, I Finally Get It.”

  1. Out of curiosity, how long does the 25-mile commute take?? I’m guessing about 45 minutes in heavy traffic.

    I don’t wave my hands or twirl my hair when talking on the celphone, but I drive a stickshift. So from time to time, I have to take my hand off the wheel to quickly shift gears. After doing this a couple of times, I have decided to discontinue use of the phone unless I have a 10-minute stretch of road in front of me, with no shifting required.

    Also, I use the speaker setting on the phone, and this works very well. If I got off my lazy butt and programmed the voice-activated dialing, then all would be perfect in my world. Until then, I still dial by hand and this is extremely dangerous, as is working on my PDA or using my minuscule MP3 player. I think any activity that requires you to avert your eyes for 5 seconds or more is what causes the accidents. I have been able to eat a burger and brush my teeth (not simultaneously) without ever taking my eyes off the road. Ditto for usage of the car radio.

  2. Actually, if I recall correctly from the VT study, most accidents resulted from people only averting their eyes for 2 seconds, for whatever reason.

    I have a new cell phone (Moto KRZR, which I love). Most of the newer cell phones that I have seen have automatic voice dialing. I dont know how they got the voice recognition to the point it’s at but I have some friends with some odd names and i just speak it into the phone and the phone dials it. I never had to program the phone to recognize my specific voice or record actual voice dial recordings like I did on my previous LG phone. All can be controlled from my bluetooth headset so I never have to touch, or even look at my actual phone.

    Since you used the words “Heavy Traffic” i would say that in heavy traffic it takes about 1.5 hours each way, almost regardless of what time I travel (and I have tried many trave times within a 3 hours period). The average commute is about 45 minutes but that average is becoming less average as time goes by. The carpool is typically pretty speedy but I dont know anyone who works the same schedule as I do.

    And thank you for clearing up your last statement. I was trying to figure out how you brushed your teeth with a hamburger. I don’t think you would get any actual benefit from it but I bet it would be a way to get kids to brush their teeth 🙂

  3. I have a stick shift as well, however I up the ante with a VX6700 (PDA-phone), with leather case thats has a magnetically closed lid. This means that just getting it out of my pocket to answer it is a chore in itself. Yes I keep it in my front pocket. It’s for the bulge effect. You’d think by now I’d have a Bluetooth earpiece or at least a speakerphone/holder set up, but I’m too lazy for that. Plus I work the second shift, so thankfully there isn’t much traffic. No one calls me much anyway 🙁
    Maybe the bulge scares them off.

  4. How bout this, we all take personal responsibility for our actions and the government encourages THIS with new laws. When I rode a motorcycle, I always hated that I was forced to wear a helmet by laws set up to protect stupid people (I would have worn it anyways, but the law pissed me off). To this concept of protecting stupid people, I didn’t feel a response was required, as it is obvious that dumb people should be allowed to kill themselves. Some would say “no, the law is there to reduce the burden accident victims put on society”, to which I say, let em sit there and die, like the Bank of America gunmen, that solves the problem.

    But what does this have to do with cell phones? Well, many of our countries dimmest have suggested and are actually enacting laws telling me I can’t talk on my cell phone because people with less capability than me to multitask are a danger if they are allowed to do the same. They can still look at a map, eat their lunch, put on makeup, or just be stupid, but the cell phone is just not allowed. To me, this is the wrong approach. If you get in an accident and you were talking on your cell phone, you should simply be held accountable for the accident, and your airbags should be disabled. If you do it again, your seat belt is removed. A third time, your arms are removed (have you ever tried to steer without using them, it is a pain). Now, if you make a mistake, and we all do because only Jesus was without flaws (yeah, allah and Buddha are second tier pretenders in my book), after 1 year of good behavior your safety privileges are reinstated by one level. Of course, if your arms were removed, you just get them back, but we will try to keep them from getting too much freezer burn.

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