Distracted pet owners warned of risks

The safety hazards of unrestrained pets in motor vehicles were highlighted this week as a AAA study suggested that only 17 percent of dog owners restrain their animals in vehicles.

Researchers warned of possible roadway “devastation” as a result.

One in five of the dog owners surveyed said that while driving they allowed pets to sit in their laps.

The AAA survey on pets said almost 60 percent of drivers who transport their dogs engaged in other distracted driving behaviors at the same time.

In a bizarre coincidence, an L.A. plastic surgeon died in Malibu not long after Tweeting and texting about about his dog, which was unrestrained in the doctor’s vehicle at the time of the crash. Frank Ryan’s Jeep plunged over a rocky embankment on the Pacific Coast Highway, killing him and pitching the dog into the ocean below. (The animal survived.)

The crash came days before AAA released its pet-owner survey.

The Los Angeles Times reported that crash investigators were trying to determine what role texting played in the accident, if any. The texting connection was widely reported.

The survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, backed by the pet product company Kurgo, found that more than half of the drivers petted their animals while on the road. (Kurgo sells restraint products.) A small percentage admitted to feeding their dogs or playing with them while driving.

“An unrestrained 10-pound dog in a crash at 50 mph will exert roughly 500 pounds of pressure, while an unrestrained 80-pound dog in a crash at only 30 mph will exert 2,400 pounds of pressure, said Jennifer Huebner-Davidson, AAA National’s Traffic Safety Programs manager. “Imagine the devastation that can cause to your pet and anyone in the vehicle in its path.”

AAA also listed its top vehicle choices for animal safety.

The survey covered 1,000 dog owners who had driven with their animals on board in the past year.

Ryan was known for his work on celebrities and for his charity efforts in removing tattoos from former L.A. gang members.

NY fatalities pinned on distracted driving

New York City’s study of its severe/fatal pedestrian accidents points to distracted driving as public enemy No. 1.

“The most common reason listed for a crash was driver inattention, a factor in 36% of pedestrian (killed or seriously injured) crashes,” the report by NYC transportation planners found.

The distracted driving accidents proved to be more than twice as deadly as those with other causes.

The study looked at more than 7,000 crashes in the city between 2002 and 2006. In the four years since that time, “electronic distracted driving has become more pressing as cellphones, computers and other portable devices further distract the driver,” the study noted.

Drivers are barred from using handheld cell phones in New York City, while taxi drivers are not allowed to use any cell phones. (Taxi drivers were involved in only 16 percent of the NYC accidents studied.) “In 2009, the NYPD issued on average 617 summonses a day to drivers using hand-held cell phones,” the transportation researchers said.

Overall, the city’s rate of traffic fatalities continues to decline, with 2009 the best on record.

“In a dense urban environment like New York City, the failure to pay attention to who (and what) is in the road is crucial,” the study concluded. “The streets are consistently populated by a wide range of users (pedestrians, bicyclists, buses, trucks, taxis) all competing for the same roadway space.”

The recommendations in the New York City Pedestrian Safety Study & Action Plan did not address distracted driving, however.

California plan to double fines is dead

State Sen. Joe Simitian’s bid to increase the effectiveness of California’s distracted driving laws has failed, at least for 2010.

Senate Bill 1475 would have would more than doubled fines on the trio of distracted driving laws that the senator pushed through in recent years. The bill also would have applied the laws against text messaging and use of handheld cell phones to California’s bicyclists.

“The deadline for bills to pass the Appropriations Committee was Aug. 13, and since the cell phone bill did not pass the committee by the deadline, it died there,” said Phil Yost of Simitian’s office.

Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has said compliance with California’s distracted driving laws is good, but “there’s room for improvement.” He was seeking “a more significant deterrent” with the increased distracted driving fines.

California’s ban on text messaging while driving went into effect on Jan. 1, 2009. Fines start at $20 and go to $50 for repeat offenses. With fees, the cost of violating the state text messaging law easily tops $200.

Simitian’s bill for 2010 sought to add a point against driver’s licenses for distracted driving violations. He later amended the bill to make the point apply on the second offense.

Bicyclists groups created the early opposition to the bill, and its proposed fines were lowered in response (to $20/$50 with no points per the amendment of April 6).

California’s brutal budget crisis would have received some help from the doubled fines. The Assembly Committee on Appropriations estimated increased distracted driving fines under Senate Bill 1475 would bring in another $32 million annually.

9 in 10 teenage drivers distracted? LOL

This week’s alarming numbers about nine in 10 teenage drivers engaging in distracted behaviors deserve a closer look.

The widely publicized survey, done for Seventeen magazine and AAA, talked to 2,000 drivers between the ages of 16 and 19.

86 percent of those teens said they engaged in distracted driving at some point. Pretty scary … but let’s take a look at what the survey defined as distracted driving:

The activity drawing the most affirmative responses from the teens (73 percent) was adjusting a radio/CD or MP3 player — an action they have in common with almost every driver on U.S. roads. Consuming food (61 percent) also counted as distracted driving — some truth to that, but no one’s writing laws about driving and eating these days.

Ask adults if they’ve engaged in these behaviors and you’d get an almost universal yes. Headline that report as “99.9% of Adults Distracted Drivers.”

Teens’ use of handheld cell phones — a distracted driving behavior in anyone’s book — came in at 60 percent, a number that seems more in tune with reality. Texting registered 28 percent, which seems low but remember the teens are self-reporting.

Teens say they feel singled out when it comes to legislating drivers’ cell phone use and text messaging. Perhaps that’s a necessary evil, but inflated numbers such as those being headlined in this survey do little to advance the national discussion about teens and distracted driving.

Mainstream media such as USA Today should know better — although we’ve had problems with that newspaper’s sloppy reporting on this issue before. Remember “USA Today botches cell phone report“?

Here are some more numbers from Seventeen/AAA:

Teens who did text behind the wheel averaged 23 messages a month.

84 percent of the teenage drivers said they were aware that these behaviors were dangerous. Those teens explained their reasoning as their actions will only take a split second (41 percent); they don’t think they’ll get hurt (35 percent); they’re used to multitasking (34 percent); and they don’t think that anything bad will happen to them (32 percent).

Nearly four out of 10 of the teens said they’ve been afraid of being hurt while riding with a distracted driver, and more than a third said they had almost been in an accident due to distracted driving.

Seventeen is promoting its “Two-Second Turnoff Day” (Sept. 17) and is asking readers to put together anti-distracted driving videos for the occasion.