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.

Missouri: Show us the ban, not the logo

The Missouri State Highway Patrol’s heart seems in the right place with its new public safety campaign against texting and driving.

Certainly there’s a need: So far this year there have been 17,535 crashes in the Show Me State where distracted driving was cited as a contributing cause.

The highway patrol even arranged for a race car to bear the logo for the no-texting campaign, one of those red-cross-out designs that says “no texting.” Want a decal for your very own car? They’re free to the public as window clingers.

One slight problem. If you’re a driver 21 or older in Missouri, feel free to text to your heart’s content. It’s perfectly legal. Same with cell phone use while driving, which has killed at least eight people on state roads since Jan. 1.

The highway patrol explains, sort of:

The campaign complements Missouri’s current anti-texting law, which prohibits use of cell phones or texting devices for drivers 21 years of age and younger. (We call on) all Missouri drivers to honor the letter and the spirit of the law — regardless of age — and stop texting while driving to help make Missouri’s highways safer for all motorists.

We’re reminded of the recent Pew survey that concluded adults are just as likely to text and drive as teenagers. Texting doesn’t seem to level off until drivers are in their mid-30s.

Of course, state troopers don’t make laws, they enforce them. But consider that the various efforts to expand the texting ban to all drivers failed in Missouri’s last legislative session. The primary reason — make that, excuse? Law agencies’ complaints that enforcement would be too difficult.

The House Public Safety Committee chairman, Mark Bruns, in fact, blocked all text messaging legislation that came through his domain because “too many questions remain on how to enforce it properly.”

The highway patrol’s chief of staff attended one texting while driving hearing before Bruns and said the law agency had no position on a texting ban. But the spokesman noted that the highway patrol promoted safety.

Public safety campaigns are no substitute for laws against deadly behaviors.

The highway patrol needs to help quash talk of enforcement woes and embrace all-ages bans on handheld electronic devices.

Lawmakers need to follow the lead of distracted driving opponents such as Rep. Rodney Schad and state Sen. Ryan McKenna, who see “an epidemic” of texting on state roads and highways.

Come on, Missouri. Show us something real. Then play with race cars.

Lobbyists fight distracted driving laws

A Washington lobbying group has been pitching cell phone companies and car manufacturers on a plan to derail distracted-driving legislation, according to several media reports this week.

July 7 update: The lobbyists abandoned the effort to derail distracted driving laws after a scolding from U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The lobbyists said they had succeeded in opening up the debate — at any rate they succeeded in attracting a lot of publicity /update

Oprah Winfrey and the DOT’s LaHood are seen as threats to the mobile communications industry, according to the 10-page memo obtained by the FairWarning investigative site. The memo cites a “full-throttle assault on mobile technology,” the FairWarning report says.

The Washington Post identified the lobbyists behind the push as Seward Square Group and Eris Group. Eris, however, told the Post that it had withdrawn from the effort due to client conflicts.

In response to the memo, a DOT spokesman told the Post: “We are doing everything possible to combat talking on the phone and texting while driving and others who care about safety will join our effort — not undermine it.”

DRIVE — which stands for “Drivers for Responsibility, Innovation and Vehicle Education” — plans to advocate awareness instead of laws and legislation, FairWarning reports. Spearheading the campaign would be James E. Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board for the Clinton administration, the memo says.

GPS makers, insurance companies and public safety groups also were targeted for the push, the Post said.

South Dakotans see texting ad — but no laws

South Dakota hasn’t gotten around to banning texting while driving. Two attempts at distracted driving laws crashed and burned in the Legislature this season as lawmakers fretted about personal liberties and enforcement.

Prospects for distracted driving legislation in South Dakota next session: murky at best.

But the state has a PSA.

Better than nothing.

Titans of texting take pledge, get Sparks tickets

Here’s a new one in the world of distracted-driving safety campaigns:

South Florida teens who proved themselves to be superstars of text messaging were awarded free tickets to a concert by “American Idol” star Jordin Sparks.

One catch: They had to pledge to never text and drive.

The idea for the unusual safety contest came from Stacy Kagan, an Allstate Insurance agent in Coral Springs. “We’re trying to encourage teens to be aware that texting kills,” Kagan told the Miami Herald. Allstate’s “Thumbs Up to X the TXT” has been working its way across the nation since November.

First-place “winner” Sydney Trinker turned in a cell phone bill that showed 38,000 texts in a single month. She and her family signed Allstate’s no-texting pledge — and is off to see Sparks in concert. (Teens could only submit previous cell phone bills.)

Sparks’ summer “Battlefield” tour hosts “X the TXT” events in 29 cities. “Choosing to not pick up the phone and keep your eyes on the road can be the difference between life and death,” the young singer said.

Teens who pledge not to text message and drive can add their thumbprints to a traveling banner displayed at concert stops.

Distracted parents driving teens to texting

Teenagers tend to follow their parents’ lead when it comes to driving … and texting?

NPR’s “Morning Edition” just did a segment on teens, texting and distracted driving, citing anecdotal evidence that youth who see their parents engaged in dangerous behaviors while behind the wheel see that as a green light to do the same.

One teen told NPR: “If a parent is always on their cell phone, the teen’s like, oh, it’s fine. My parents do it all the time. And if their parents haven’t crashed, then it’s kind of like, okay. It’s not going to happen.”

Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project surveyed 800 teens and their parents about text messagng behind the wheel.

“(Teens) would tell stories about their parents’ texting with the phone while trying to drive with their knees,” Lenhart said on the radio feature. “They would talk about other ways in which parents were distracted behind the wheel, including using GPS or trying to use a walkie-talkie function on a phone, or make calls.”

And some of those kids say they’re downright scared of riding with their distracted parents, the NPR feature said.

Lenhart’s study “Teens and Mobile Phones” (April 20) found that daily text messaging among U.S. teens soared in a recent 18-month period, from 38% to 54%. Older teenage girls were the busiest texters, the Pew study found, sending an average of 100 messages a day.

One in three teens admitted to texting while driving, while 52% of teens who have cell phones said they had talked while behind the wheel.

Lynn Neary’s radio report was part of the “Today in Your Health” series.

Listen to the NPR report on teens, parents and texting.
Read the “Working to Stop Teens Texting Behind the Wheel” transcript.

When legislators attack (texting bills)

Two lawmakers have dug in their heels on texting while driving legislation, effectively killing texting bills in Florida and Alabama.

In Florida, the chairwoman of the House Finance and Tax Council says the primary bill that would ban texting and driving is “intellectually dishonest.” She refuses to allow a vote on its merits.

Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, says HB 41 is “not stalled. It’s dead.” (HB 41 is the companion to SB 448, which is moving ahead in the Senate.)

Bogdanoff’s beef seems to be that the bill ban behaviors that she says are already covered under state careless driving laws. Like many opponents of distracted driving legislation, she lays on the smoke by calling for a bill that covers less dangerous activities like putting on makeup — a bill that could never pass.

“Never mind the fact that more than a dozen bills on the topic were offered during this session, or that Gov. Charlie Crist was poised to sign a texting ban,” the Sunshine State News wrote in blasting Bogdanoff.

Bogdanoff, pictured at left, is an attorney. She admits to texting behind the wheel and notes that we are a “multitasking society now.” You can email Bogdanoff at ellyn.bogdanoff@myfloridahouse.gov

Rep. Doug Holder, R-Sarasota, a coauthor of the bill, told the St. Petersburg Times: “What can you do when someone just locks down and says, ‘I am not going to move forward,’ which she clearly has done?”

“What happened in Florida is just appalling to me,” said Jennifer Smith, the president of the survivors advocacy group FocusDriven.

It gets worse.

In Alabama, hopes for a text messaging while driving ban were crushed when a band of lawyers serving in the Senate insisted on inserting language that favors plaintiffs in crashes linked to texting.

Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, was the ringleader — an attorney, of course. He is a key player on the Senate Judiciary Committee and had support of its chairman — another attorney.

An insurance company objected to the lawyers’ provision, which presumed negligence on the part of a text-messaging driver in a crash. (More lawsuits meaning more attorney fees.) The collision of these self-servers brought the distracted driving plan to a halt as time ran out on the legislative session.

The bill, HB 35, had easily won approval in the state House and had broad support in the Alabama Legislature.

Days after the bill died, the Huntsville Times editorialized: “Opponents of this ban should be ashamed of themselves for killing this life-saving bill. … Bedford, Alfa (the insurance group) and whoever else torpedoed the text ban law are wrong. … (Their) excuses, frankly, don’t make sense.”

Feel like dropping Bedford an email? — senbedford@aol.com

Rep. Jim McClendon, R-Springville, says he’ll be back with the legislation in 2011.

Far from distracted in Southern California

Out here in Calfornia, it’s hard to remember how it was. Back in the bad old days, before the state banned the use of handheld cell phones while driving.

Sure you see the occasional fool holding a mobile phone to his ear, but for the most part people here have accepted that phone calls can wait until the drive’s over. Too bad we can’t quantify the quite apparent but subjective truth that the freeways are better and safer with the cell phone and text messaging bans.

It was gratifying, then, to read this bit of confirmation in a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun:

I just returned from a week’s vacation in southern California, and I was amazed that during my many trips on I-5 and I-405 that I did not see one person holding a cell phone while driving. … Also, I did not see cars wandering from one lane to another, cars going to slow on the interstate, and no accidents. Surprisingly, California drivers were attentive (even though they drive very fast) to what other cars were doing around them.

Thanks, Ron Wirsing. You’re welcome in our Golden State anytime.

Your texting & driving rights, defended by patriots

Strangest beginning to a news story we’ve seen in a while:

“PHOENIX — Arizona drivers’ right to compose and send text messages from behind the wheel of a moving vehicle has successfully been defended.”

This from a report on the defeat of a distracted driving bill, written by Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services. The headline in the Arizona Star noted that the bill “was sent packing.”

Guess the Arizona cops would have to pry the text messaging devices from freedom lovers’ cold dead hands.

A distinct possibility, if you think about it.

After a crash and ‘epiphany,’ Ky. rep votes yes

Last week, State Rep. Keith Hall of Kentucky turned thumbs down on a plan to ban text messaging while driving. He voted against HB 43 in the House Transportation Committee.

The measure succeeded, though, and went before the full House on Feb. 4. This time, Hall voted yes with the zeal of a recent convert.

“I’ve had a change of heart,” he told the House.

That’s because the night before the vote, his wife reportedly reached for her ringing cell phone and plowed into another vehicle.

“I heard the sirens go off, and my cell phone rang and they said, ‘Your wife has just had a serious traffic accident,’ he told fellow legislators during debate.

“That’ll give you an epiphany,” he said. “That’ll give you a wake-up call.”

Kentucky’s distracted driving bill HB 43, which also prevents teens from using cell phones while driving, cleared the chamber in an 80-16 vote.

People frustrated with legislative resistance to cell phone and texting legislation sometimes wonder if distracted driving has to affect lawmakers personally before they’ll vote yes.

Sometimes, yes.

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