Banning Cell phones in vehicles....
I've noticed an interesting trend that's happening around the world where many communities are banning the use of cell phones in vehicles.
Not that I totally object to it but let's have some perspective on this.
How many things does a typical vehicle have that can cause distraction? To list a few:
Radio/CD player
Cup Holder (Spill anything in your lap lately)
Vanity Mirror (on the driver's side)
GPS navigation systems
DVD players
iPods (even worse than a radio)
Someone talking to you in the passenger seat
Radar Detector (although some might argue this is a great warning system for construction sites that use the warning beacons)
Maps (oh yeah, we should ban these, I see people reading these while driving)
Newspapers (nothing like a broadsheet on the drive to work)
Fast Food (Greasy fingers is supposed to be a great leather conditioner right?)
Screaming Children (may as well say that parents are not allowed to drive with distracting children in the car)
Blackberries (how many people actually read email on these things while driving - okay guilty as charged but realized how dangerous this was)
The problem with cell phones is not the phone themselves, but it's the people who have bad driving habits. A test conducted a couple of years ago showed that a driver who had 10 years of road experience drove far safer than a driver of 1 year experience while distracted with things like Cell Phones or radios. They tested for how often the eye would waver off the road. They discovered that experienced drivers would never take their eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds, while inexperience drivers would go anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. The results showed that inexperienced drivers were 'trusting' that the conditions that they last saw would not change in that time frame while experienced drivers always checked to ensure that the road is safe.
Now cell phones are not visual devices or are they? Because a cell phone could be just as distracting as that person or child making noise in the back of your ear, you do need to disassociate yourself and try to perhaps 'imagine' the situation you are conversing about. Having hands free phones do not correct for this issue at all. This would seem to be a reasonable argument to support the notion to ban cell phones, but the problem is, where do we stop when it comes to eliminating distractions from vehicles.
The reality is, we need to consider this into our driver education and not focus merely on banning devices from our vehicles as a solution to which we perceive as a problem. The people who get into accidents with these devices dangling from their ears are not getting into accidents because of the phone alone. They are getting into accidents because they are horrible drivers. If it wasn't the cell phone it would be likely something else that would distract them and eventually get into an accident again.
One of the few points I was deducted when I first earned my driver's license so long ago was my failure to do a shoulder check on a right hand turn. This was over 20 years ago and there were no bike lanes back then, but my tester brought to my attention that I failed to check over my shoulder which might have had a cyclist or a pedestrian there (although one might argue that I should have seen them before I passed them). But ironically even after 20 years, it's one thing that I still remember to do. We need our drivers to be educated how to drive with distractions around them. Until we have computers that can drive us from destination A to B without incident, our drivers need to learn how to multi-task but maintain 95% of their attention to the road ahead. I don't think it's too much to ask, rather than band-aid it with an outright ban.
Anyhow just a random thought for the day.
-K
Not that I totally object to it but let's have some perspective on this.
How many things does a typical vehicle have that can cause distraction? To list a few:
Radio/CD player
Cup Holder (Spill anything in your lap lately)
Vanity Mirror (on the driver's side)
GPS navigation systems
DVD players
iPods (even worse than a radio)
Someone talking to you in the passenger seat
Radar Detector (although some might argue this is a great warning system for construction sites that use the warning beacons)
Maps (oh yeah, we should ban these, I see people reading these while driving)
Newspapers (nothing like a broadsheet on the drive to work)
Fast Food (Greasy fingers is supposed to be a great leather conditioner right?)
Screaming Children (may as well say that parents are not allowed to drive with distracting children in the car)
Blackberries (how many people actually read email on these things while driving - okay guilty as charged but realized how dangerous this was)
The problem with cell phones is not the phone themselves, but it's the people who have bad driving habits. A test conducted a couple of years ago showed that a driver who had 10 years of road experience drove far safer than a driver of 1 year experience while distracted with things like Cell Phones or radios. They tested for how often the eye would waver off the road. They discovered that experienced drivers would never take their eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds, while inexperience drivers would go anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. The results showed that inexperienced drivers were 'trusting' that the conditions that they last saw would not change in that time frame while experienced drivers always checked to ensure that the road is safe.
Now cell phones are not visual devices or are they? Because a cell phone could be just as distracting as that person or child making noise in the back of your ear, you do need to disassociate yourself and try to perhaps 'imagine' the situation you are conversing about. Having hands free phones do not correct for this issue at all. This would seem to be a reasonable argument to support the notion to ban cell phones, but the problem is, where do we stop when it comes to eliminating distractions from vehicles.
The reality is, we need to consider this into our driver education and not focus merely on banning devices from our vehicles as a solution to which we perceive as a problem. The people who get into accidents with these devices dangling from their ears are not getting into accidents because of the phone alone. They are getting into accidents because they are horrible drivers. If it wasn't the cell phone it would be likely something else that would distract them and eventually get into an accident again.
One of the few points I was deducted when I first earned my driver's license so long ago was my failure to do a shoulder check on a right hand turn. This was over 20 years ago and there were no bike lanes back then, but my tester brought to my attention that I failed to check over my shoulder which might have had a cyclist or a pedestrian there (although one might argue that I should have seen them before I passed them). But ironically even after 20 years, it's one thing that I still remember to do. We need our drivers to be educated how to drive with distractions around them. Until we have computers that can drive us from destination A to B without incident, our drivers need to learn how to multi-task but maintain 95% of their attention to the road ahead. I don't think it's too much to ask, rather than band-aid it with an outright ban.
Anyhow just a random thought for the day.
-K