No one argues that texting while driving is stupidly dangerous.

But is a conversation on a hands-free phone just as bad?

Popular Mechanics contributing editor and Instapundit blogger Glenn Harlan Reynolds argues that it is not and that the NTSB is stretching the facts to support its proposal. Read what he has to say here.

Many individual states and cities in the USA have their own restrictions on the use of cell phones by drivers, yesterday the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called for nationwide ban on drivers placing phone calls or sending/reading text messages. The new ban, if passed, would outlaw all non-emergency calls and texts by every driver in the USA, including both handheld and hands-free devices.

The proposed NTSB ban far exceeds current laws existing in at least 35 states.

Evidence so far shows that existing laws have not diminished texting while driving. The Associate Press reports that NHTSA data shows it increasing. Roughly 20% of USAmerican drivers – including half of drivers aged 21 to 24 – say they’ve texted or sent email while driving.

Overstated Risks?

In a strange coincidence, the NTSB ban was announced on the same day that new analysis of existing data claims that the dangers of cell phone use while driving may have been overestimated.

Researchers at Detroit’s Wayne State University School of Medicine re-examined two influential studies on distracted driving and car crashes and found problems in the methodologies used.

The two studies in question, a 1997 Canadian study and a 2005 Australian study, compared cell phone billing records of people who’d been involved in crashes. The billing records concretely determined the amount of phone use, but according to Richard Young, lead author of the new analysis, claimed that the studies weren’t as diligent about determining the amount of driving done by these drivers over the same period.

The Wayne State analysis was published in Epidemiology. You can read the Time Magazine story of both the proposed ban and the research analysis here.

Before you check out the list in the video clip below, try to guess what made the Top 10.

For more information on what made the list and what makes it dangerous, see this write-up from insure.com

The article includes the story of Longfellow Elementary School in Houston. When budget constraints prevented the school from putting up warning signs, students and parents banded together to create and post their own signs. Read the full story here.

Though drinking and driving gets more attention, distracted driving continues to be just as dangerous. In the case of texting while driving, it’s even more dangerous, because it involves all three kinds of distraction simultaneously. At Comedy Guys Defensive Driving, we work hard to make our students aware of the dangers of cruising down the road without dedicating most of your attention to the act of driving.

How Distracted a Driver are You?
Take this Quiz and Find Out.

Somehow we missed it when it was new, but back in September Carroll Lachnit, the features editor at Edmunds.com, wrote a great piece on distracted driving, pulling together all the facts and research and explaining both why it’s so dangerous and why banning cell phone use won’t solve the entire problem.

Even though it’s not a new article, it’s still timely. Check out the article if you want to be one of those people who actually know what they’re talking about when they speak.

Driving while distracted continues to be one of the biggest contributing factors to motor vehicle collisions in the USA. Cell phones and texting get most of the blame, but the truth is that people do all kinds of things instead of focusing on their driving. Before we had cell phones, dangerous drivers were playing with their radios instead of looking at the road, or eating, or fixing their makeup, or talking to their passengers, or reaching into the back to slap the kid who’s been kicking the back of your seat for the last umpteen miles. (…which reminds me: Happy Birthday, Dad!)

Many of us get so comfortable and confident about driving that we think we can lose focus and do other things while we’re driving. And often we get away with it safely, which just makes us more careless the next time.

So if you haven’t joined the anti-distraction bandwagon yet, let me try this one more time: when you’re operating a heavy, fast-moving metal machine among other heavy, fast-moving metal machines, pay attention to what you’re doing!

Why Distracted Driving is So Dangerous

Things happen fast on the road. When some car in front of you suddenly gives you a reason to stop, you have an average of a second and a half to put the brakes on. That’s three-quarters of a second to recognize the danger and three-quarters to move your foot to the brake pedal and push. Not much time to avoid parking your car inside some other car’s trunk.

But if you’re not paying attention to the road ahead — or if you’re following too closely, which is another common mistake driver’s make —you won’t have even that much time.

You’ll be heading toward a collision with no chance to stop your car or steer out of the situation.

The US Department of Transportation has identified three kinds of distraction that take a driver’s attention from the act of driving. And what makes texting while driving so dangerous is that it involves all three kinds of distraction at once.

But unfortunately not enough people realize it yet. Too many people still tool down the road, having their lunch or texting their friends at 70mph while other, equally distracted drivers cut in front of them or stop suddenly.

Practically everyone has some distracted habits, but just how distracted a driver are you?

The good people at Car Talk have created a test to measure just how safe — or how reckless — you are behind the wheel. Answer 21 simple questions and you’ll get a number score quantifying just how dangerously distracted you can be.

The quiz will open in a new window, so please comment here and tell us what score you got.

And for the record, I got a 7, making me a “traffic safety nerd.”

I’m not apologizing for that, but to be completely honest, I’m a lot less distracted since I spilled Nesbitt’s Orange Soda on my cell phone. It turns out that the zesty fizz may feel good going down, but it’s lousy for circuitry.

— Wes Williams

LaHood believes that any use of cell phones while driving is a dangerous distraction to drivers, including Bluetooth and other hands-free devices. And he’s directed the DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to research all driver distractions as a possible foundation for requesting a national ban on cell phone use while driving.

At present, only five individual states ban cell phone use, although eighteen others have partial bans in effect.

LaHood calls the use of even hands-free phone conversations a “cognitive distraction,” taking the driver’s attention and concentration away from the road.

Conversations with passengers are generally less distracting, according to
NYTimes technology reporter Matt Richtel, because the passengers are in the car with the driver: they can see and even help monitor driving conditions. The
people on the other end of a phone conversation have no idea what’s going on
outside the car and keep on talking, regardless of conditions.

“I don’t want people talking on phones, having them up to their ear or
texting while they’re driving,” LaHood said in an early October interview with Bloomberg.com. “We need a lot better research on other distractions,” including Bluetooth-enabled hands-free calls and the in-car systems, he said. His concerns
also include the use of such vehicle information and entertainment systems such as Ford Motor Co.’s Sync and General Motors Co.’s OnStar.

If a nation-wide ban is passed, the USA will join 42 other nations with such a ban.

For more details and opposing viewpoints, read the entire Bloomberg.com article here.

New to driving, they don’t have the experience that many older drivers do. Often the young feel invulnerable, so they make take chances that older drivers won’t. Typically sociable, they travel in small groups, making it more likely that they will have noisy, distracting friends with them in the car. And because the part of the brain that makes it possible to evaluate risks doesn’t fully kick in until about 26, teenage drivers may think things like driving while texting or punching in a phone number seem like good ideas.

(In the interest of fairness, I should mention that too many adults do all of this stuff, too. I think maybe that for some people, the risk evaluating part of the brain never fully kicks in.)

So, as a group, teenagers are among the most dangerous drivers. But teenagers, as a group, are also as smart, resourceful, and self-interested as any other groups of people, which means they can be taught the habits and attitudes that will make them safer drivers.

And that’s the entire idea behind National Teen Driver Safety Week.

Begun in 2007 by the US Congress, the third week in October is set aside as a time to bring more attention to the dangers faced by and often caused by teenage drivers. Through school programs and special events, groups across the country take this week as an opportunity to educate new drivers about the real risks of the road and to better prepare them to handle those risks.

This year’s theme is Reducing Distractions. Distracted driving is the number 1 cause of collisions involving younger drivers, and auto collisions is the number 1 cause of death among adolescents. According to Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Fatality Facts 2008: Teenagers, the fatality rate for drivers ages 16 to 19, based on miles driven, is four times higher than for drivers ages 25 to 69.

Whether it’s texting or cell phone calls or finding a song that isn’t lame or just friends talking constantly from the back seat, distractions are especially dangerous to teenage drivers. Driving is a complicated set of actions and awarenesses, requiring a great deal of concentration. And the less experience a driver has, the more concentration is needed. This makes distracted driving, dangerous to all drivers, even more dangerous to inexperienced teenage drivers.

The conversation also covered texting and cell phones in cars and the practicality of laws that ban them.

If you’re interested in cars and driving — or if you have a teenage driver in your house — this episode of Downshift is of interest to you.

Ah, but it is really an “accident” if you were texting before it happened? Isn’t more like a negative event resulting from doing something foolish?

Anyway, Allstate Insurance has become one more of a large number of companies and organizations to begin campaigning against people sending text messages while driving. As we’ve pointed out before, texting is one of the most distracting things that a driver can do, making them every bit as dangerous on the road as a drunk driver.

At Allstate’s landing page dedicated to distracted driving, you can get important facts, find the applicable laws for your state, and get information about stopping this dangerous practice in your area, your workplace, and your own family.

For years now, Comedy Guys Defensive Driving has been talking about the dangers of driving while distracted, and we welcome a company as well known and respected as Allstate Insurance to the fight.

Michigan

The ban, which could take effect as soon as July 1, makes texting while driving a primary offense, empowering police officers to pull drivers over for that reason alone.  Offenders could face first-time fines of $100 and subsequent penalties of $200.

The move has so far been applauded by citizens groups and police departments across Michigan.

The dangers of texting and all other forms of distracted driving are a big part of our classes at Comedy Guys Defensive Driving. We are dedicated to making Texas a safer place to drive by making a safer driver out of everyone who takes our class either online or at one of our over 30 class locations.

The US DOT and NHTSA — “National Highway Traffic Safety Administration” for those playing at home — have created www.distraction.gov, a place where drivers can educate themselves about just how dangerous it can be to drive without giving the task the attention it deserves.

The site identifies three types of distracted driving:

• visual, taking your eyes off of the road
• manual, taking your hands off of the wheel
• mental, letting your mind wander

Which of the three is the most prevalent — or the most dangerous — is largely a matter of opinion, but they’re all risky. A moving car with a distracted driver is basically a missile aimed at pretty much anything.

And this line is especially telling: “While all distractions can endanger drivers’ safety, texting is the most alarming because it involves all three types of distraction.”

At ComedyGuys.com Defensive Driving, we take distracted driving very seriously, too. In our training, we see the statistics, and in our classes we hear the horror stories. Whether you take our online driving safety class or take our defensive driving class at one of our more than 30 locations in Texas, we’ll spend time discussing the dangers of driving while distracted and do our best to make safer drivers out of our students.

But enough about methodology. Let’s see the results…

The #1 spot went to the legal profession. According to the study’s results, 44% of the judges and attorneys seeking an insurance quote reported having had a previous collision. Compare that to the two lowest ranking professions, homemakers at 24% and professional athletes at 17%.

Coming in at #2 were financial professionals.

Insurance.com VP Sam Belden offered an explanation for these results: “Professions that demand multi-tasking – being on the phone, moving fast on a tight schedule – are prone to more distractions and, from there, more accidents.”

Completing the Top 10 list were
3. government workers
4. bartenders/waiters
5. business professionals
6. dog groomers
7. marketing/advertising professionals
8. barbers/stylists
9. coaches
10. nurses

The common factor here seems to be busy people who are likely to be rushed and distracted while they’re behind the wheel.

If you’re part of one of these groups, ComedyGuys.com Defensive Driving can help: our driving safety classes can make you aware of the bad habits that make you a danger to yourself and others. And we can help make you safer even if you’re not on this list: our classes, whether live or online, include strategies for reacting to the foolish things other drivers might do.

It’s all part of our mission to make a safer driver out of everyone who takes our class.

Source: insurance.com

According to Russell Henk of the Texas Transportation Institute, the program is has three goals: increasing awareness of the risk, changing actual driving behavior, and saving lives.

And “Teens in the Driver’s Seat” has been doing all three in Garland: The number of Garland teenagers involved in crashes has dropped 12% since the program began. Over the same period of time, teenage drivers in nearby Mesquite have seen their crashes reduce by only 2%.

ComedyGuys Defensive Driving applauds these students for making driving safer for themselves and those of us who share the roads with them. Distracted drivers are an increasing hazard on Texas roads, and we make the danger they create a big part of our driving safety classes.

Source: KERA Radio News

On the heels of a Virginia Tech study on cell phone use and driving distraction showing that truckers are 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or close call while texting, Oprah has taken the issue head-on. She committed a full show on January 18 to the issue, comparing texting to driving after four drinks, and declaring the practice “absolutely stupid.”

According to the print arm of Winfrey’s empire, O Magazine, the problem is science, not personality.

In other words, we’re hardwired to focus on single duty at a time. Multitasking is largely a (potentially dangerous) myth.

The result? More and more states (19 so far with total bans) have already been cracking down on distraction and implementing new laws about texting, including legislation in Texas last September. Now, Capitol Hill is joining the campaign.

According to the Washington Post,

On Tuesday, the federal government formally barred truckers and bus drivers from sending text messages while behind the wheel, putting its imprimatur on a prohibition embraced by many large trucking and transportation companies.

“We want the drivers of big rigs and buses and those who share the roads with them to be safe,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This is an important safety step, and we will be taking more to eliminate the threat of distracted driving.” …

In announcing the ban, LaHood mentioned data compiled last year by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The agency said that texting drivers take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 out of every six seconds. At 55 mph, he said, that means a texting driver travels the length of a football field, including the end zones, without looking at the road.”

Texting and driving is an oft-discussed issue at Comedy Guys Defensive Driving. We’ll keep you updated on all the latest laws and developments (and, of course, your options concerning defensive driving if you get caught).