OTS: Calif. cell phone deaths falling

California fatalities linked to handheld cell phone use fell by almost half following enactment of the state’s ban on use of the wireless devices while driving, a new study indicates.

In the two years following the July 2008 adoption of the distracted driving law, handheld cell phone driver deaths decreased 47 percent, the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) at the University of California, Berkeley, found.

Similar reductions occurred in the number of injuries, as well as deaths associated with cell phone use with hands-free accessories, SafeTREC said. Overall, California traffic deaths fell 22 percent in the two-year period, compared with the two years before the handheld cell phone law took effect.

“These results suggest that the law banning handheld cell phone use while driving had a positive impact on reducing traffic fatalities and injuries,” said David Ragland, director of SafeTREC.

A few widely publicized studies have questioned the effectiveness of cell phone bans. The Highway Loss Data Institute reported in early 2010 that auto insurance collision claims remained about the same in California and a few other states after they adopted bans on the use of handheld cell phones. (The study only reported on newer vehicles and did not include accidents in which no claims were made.)

The California DMV says there were 460,487 handheld cell phone convictions in 2011, up 22 percent compared with 2010 (361,260 convictions) and up 52 percent from 2009 (301,833).

“Highly visible and publicized enforcement, along with the cooperation of the motoring public to reduce distractions behind the wheel, has played a significant role in the reduction in collisions,” said California Highway Patrol Commissioner Joe Farrow.

Read the California Office of Traffic Safety news release on handheld cell phone death statistics (PDF). OTS funds SafeTREC distracted driving research and educational initiatives. OTS, created by the Legislature, exists mainly to funnel federal highway safety grants to state and local programs.

Calif. safety enemy No. 1: cell phones

Cell phone use while driving has become the No. 1 safety problem on California roads and highways, a new survey of state motorists says.

Close behind came texting while driving. Combined, cell phoning and text messaging drew almost 40 percent of the responses.

Both problems individually outweighed last year’s main concern, “speeding and aggressive driving,” according to the second-annual survey by the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Texting soared in mentions as the biggest danger, going from last year’s 2 percent to 18 percent.

When asked to name the most serious distraction for drivers, respondents said cell phone use (56 percent) and texting while driving (27 percent). No other distracted activity (eating, grooming, etc.) was cited in more than 2 percent of the responses. Texting again increased as a concern, going from about 13 percent (2010) to 27 percent. Cell phone use (handheld or hands-free) fell by 6 percent, with most of those mentions presumably rerouted to texting.

The 2011 survey included 1,801 drivers over age 18. They were questioned at gas stations throughout California. (Read the 2011 California traffic safety report).

“This information provides us with unique insight into the concerns of Californians,” OTS Director Christopher Murphy said. “It is very telling that we’ve seen such a shift in opinions on cell phone use in just one year.”

The drivers indicated they’re getting the message about distracted driving: When asked how often they talked on a handheld cell phone in the past month, 10.5 percent said “regularly” — down from 14 percent in 2010. The majority indicated “never.”

When asked the same question about text messaging while driving, 6 percent indicated they did it regularly, down from 9 percent in 2010. 72 percent said never. More drivers 18-24 cited texting as the top danger, yet they were more likely to text message while behind the wheel.

A third of Southern California drivers cited texting as the biggest problem while only a quarter agreed in Northern California.

More responses from the traffic safety survey:

• Four in 10 of the drivers said they used their cell phone less because of California’s handheld law.
• Seven in 10 said hands-free cell phone use was safer than handheld use.
• Six in 10 said they’ve been hit or almost hit by a driver yakking on a cell phone, up slightly from 2010.

The California Office of Traffic Safety survey also asked the motorists about drunken driving, sobriety checkpoints and seat belt use. The director said the survey was beginning to show trends in its second year and would provide “valuable data for our planning, particularly in distracted driving programs and the emerging drugged driving problem.”

Cell phone use by drivers ranked No. 2 in the 2010 survey about the biggest safety problems on California’s highways.

Related story: U.S. drivers recognize talking & texting as dangerous activities, but many continue to drive distracted anyway — even in high-risk traffic situations.

Despite the danger, we’re still talking

U.S. drivers recognize talking & texting as dangerous activities, but many continue to drive distracted anyway — even in high-risk traffic situations.

Nothing new there, but several recent surveys shed more light on the problem.

Results of five recent surveys regarding cell phone and texting use are consistent with attitudinal studies conducted over the past 10 years. The latest numbers strongly suggest that widespread distracted driving educational efforts still have a lot of work left to do.

A Roper poll of U.S. adults shows, in fact, that the higher the overall education level, the more likely a driver is to use a handheld cell phone or text message while behind the wheel.

The poll, sponsored by InsuranceQuotes.com, indicated 93 percent of all adults engage in some form of distracted driving.

About 40 percent said they crashed, received a ticket or exhibited dangerous driving behavior as a result. But when the sample size was limited to drivers with college degrees, the number increased to almost 50 percent.

When it comes to serious accidents, the well-educated drivers reported more than double the number of wrecks than all drivers. Similar but less dramatic increases were found among high-income drivers.

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A study of teenage drivers indicates that they continue to become more aware of of the dangers of text messaging while driving, with six of 10 agreeing that texting was the most dangerous distracted behavior.

But more than half of the young drivers admitted to texting while driving at least sometimes, according to the annual Liberty Mutual Insurance and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) study.

“More than 40 percent of teens who text while driving send more than 10 messages from behind the wheel each day,” the survey of almost 2,300 young drivers said.

Almost 7 out of 10 teens said they talked on a cell phone while driving.

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67 percent of drivers surveyed by the AAA Foundation reported using a cell phone while driving in September, with one in three saying they frequently engaged in calls while behind the wheel.

More than a third of the drivers surveyed said they had text messaged while driving in the past month.

Of those admitting to talking and driving, “28% admitted to answering a call while driving on a freeway with heavy traffic more than half the time and 15% said they make calls on the freeway fairly often or regularly,” the Foundation reported.

More than half of those distracted drivers reported texting while stopped at red lights. And 16 percent admitted to reading text messages while driving in heavy freeway traffic.

Support for laws that ban texting while driving remains high, at 87 percent. About 70 percent of the 3,147 residents surveyed said they supported laws against handheld cell phone use while driving.

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Another pair of surveys found a staggering amount of texting by younger adults and tracked the Internet use of smartphone owners.

About 83 percent of 10 U.S. adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them use their devices for text messaging, a Pew Internet report on texting behaviors found.

To no one’s surprise, young adults (18-24) were the heaviest users. But get this: They send or receive an average of 109.5 messages on any given day. “That works out to more than 3,200 texts per month,” Pew reported. The survey group as a whole (2,277 adults) averaged 41.5 texts a day.

The texting report also said half of the people who do the most texting would rather communicate by text instead of by a phone call.

“Overall, the survey found that both text messaging and phone calling on cell phones have leveled off for the adult population as a whole,” Pew researchers said.

Another Pew report found that a third of U.S. adults own smartphones. People under 45 were among the groups most likely to say they own one, the survey found.

Some 87% of smartphone owners access the internet or email on their handheld, including two-thirds (68%) who do so on a typical day. When asked what device they normally use to access the internet, 25% of smartphone owners say that they mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer.

The texting survey was done in April and May, and the smartphone study was conducted in May.

TXT = OCD … or addiction?

The national need to text and talk on handheld portable devices seems to be only growing stronger, as smartphones become as common as watches.

Researchers now are talking about the handheld devices in terms of obsession and addiction — with the potential for disaster when combined with motor vehicle operation.

Brains of many cell-phone-using young adults react to ringing and vibrating smartphones as they would to the arrival of a loved one, a recent study in San Diego suggests.

The same researcher reports that the sound of a vibrating cell phone ranked third among the most powerful and affecting sounds of the modern world — after the Intel chime and a baby’s giggle. (Read the New York Times story on cell phone addiction.)

Perhaps you’ve heard the slang for Blackberry devices: Crackberries.

University of Arkansas researchers say, however, that the problem may not be addiction, but obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Management of objectionable behaviors linked to OCD and to addictions require totally different approaches, they said.

Professor Moez Limayem found that “the underlying motivation to use a mobile phone is not pleasure, as predicted by addictions studies, but rather a response to heightened stress and anxiety.”

That stress often results from feeling an exaggerated need to attend to a family life while in the workplace, and to respond to business demands while with family and friends, they said.

The Arkansas findings showed that “the most significant predictor of dangerous mobile phone usage was answering text messages while driving. Incoming alerts triggered dangerous usage. Conversely, initiating text messages was not a significant factor.”

That means that the driving force is to respond to a call or text, not to stay in touch at inappropriate times.

“The possibility that mobile phone usage is a compulsion rather than an addiction may suggest more effective legislative interventions and prevention tactics,” Limayem said.

That view supports education over punitive action such as tickets and fines, the Arkansas team said. Use of differing ring tones to separate important and less vital callers could help as well, they said.

In the dog days, a safety warning

Doggie distractions: AAA just updated its poll on pet owners who drive with their dogs in the vehicle. Once again, the survey found the pet owners fessing up to their potentially dangerous behaviors.

About 6 of 10 drivers who own dogs reported that they bring their canines along on car trips. About a quarter of the respondents said they use their hands or arms to restrain the dog while braking.

Almost 20 percent of the drivers said they reach into the back seat to interact with the dog, while 17 percent of the drivers allow their pets to sit their laps.

“83 percent of respondents acknowledge that an unrestrained dog in a moving car can be dangerous, but only 16 percent currently use a pet restraint,” the survey found.

The leading reason for not using a restraint was the owner felt the dog was calm and did not need restraining. AAA warned that in a crash, unrestrained dogs (calm or not) are flying objects, capable of doing great damage to themselves and to anyone in their way.

Education could be key. The AAA survey found that use of a restraint is three times greater with drivers who knew about cases in which unrestrained dogs were injured or caused injury to other passengers in a car crash (32 percent) compared with respondents who were not aware of such a situation but still used a restraint (9 percent).

The co-sponsor was Kuro, which (conveniently) sells pet-restraint services.

The online study was conducted using a sample of 1,000 dog owners who have driven with their dog in past year. A similar survey was released in 2010.

Adults tie teens in texting, driving

Adults are just as likely to text message while driving as teenagers, according to a new national survey.

“Adults may be the ones sounding the alarm on the dangers of distracted driving, but they don’t always set the best example themselves,” said Mary Madden of the Pew Research Center.

The finding contradicts the widely held belief that texting and driving is primarily a problem with teens. The Pew report on distracted driving does show, however, that young adults (ages 18 to 34) are the most likely to text and drive, by far (59 percent).

More than a quarter of U.S. adults (27 percent) admit to texting while behind the wheel, Pew reports. Texting teens posted almost identical numbers (26 percent).

Police say texting and driving is more dangerous for teens, who have far less experience behind the wheel than adults. At any age, texting and operating a motor vehicle has been found to dramatically increase the chances of an accident.

Adults who say then have driven while on a cell phone clearly outpace teenagers, the distracted driving poll found. 61 percent of adults said they used a mobile phone while driving, vs. 43 percent of teenagers (ages 16, 17).

Nine in 10 members of Generation X (34-45 years old) who own cell phones report that they talk and drive. Seniors come in at 50 percent.

Adults 18-33 are the most likely to admit they text while driving (59 percent) compared with age groups 34-45 (50 percent) and 46-64 (29 percent).

More findings from the Pew study:

• Almost half of all adults and teens say they have been passengers in a vehicle when the driver was text messaging.
• 44 percent of adults say they’ve been in a vehicle when the driver used a cell phone in a dangerous way. 40 percent of the teens said they had. This figure decreases dramatically with age.
• Pew says 14 percent of adult drivers have run into something or someone while talking or texting.
• Men are more likely than women to admit texting while behind the wheel (51 percent of men who use text messaging devices vs. 42 percent of women).
• 82 percent of adults have cell phones. 58% text message on their mobile phones.

Telephone interviews were conducted with 2,252 adult drivers in late May and early April. Numbers for teens came from earlier reports. Adults may be more reliable than teens in self-reporting their behaviors.

Another recent report found that states are increasingly fighting distracted driving.

Forty-three states are now collecting data on distraction as a factor in road and highway accidents. That compares with 17 in 2003, the Governors Highway Safety Association reports.

Twenty-seven states have written distracted driving provisions into their Strategic Highway Safety Plans. (That’s almost the same number of states that had adopted laws on texting and talking while behind the wheel.) The SHSPs reflect priorities and programs in departments of transportation and motor vehicles, as well as safety programs.

Thirty-seven states have launched public information campaigns to warn of the hazards of distracted driving.

Teens, texting at night a deadly duo

U.S. teenagers’ most dangerous move behind the wheel? Not speeding, not drinking, not racing. It’s simply driving after dark, according to a new study of highway fatalities.

From 1999 to 2008, the proportion of fatal crashes at night involving teen drivers increased 10 percent, according to a study released May 6 by the Texas Transportation Institute. Fatalities involving all drivers fell during those 10 years.

Most of the blame for the teen spike should go to use of cell phones and texting devices, researchers speculate.

“We know driving at night is dangerous,” said Bernie Fette of the Texas Transportation Institute. “We know using a cell phone behind the wheel compromises your ability to drive. Put those together and you’ve created a perfect storm (for highway fatalities).”

Teens die in distracted driving accidents more often than any other group of drivers.

In 1999, nighttime crashes accounted for 45 percent of fatalities linked to the 16 to 19 age group. In 2008, that rose to 50 percent.

After nighttime driving, the fatality factors for drivers 16 to 19 years old were speed, distractions, failure to buckle up and drinking, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

While almost all teens understand that drinking and driving costs lives, very few were aware that motoring at night was a separate risk factor, the study said, citing a survey of Texas teens.

The researchers also cited teen driver fatigue as a likely contributor to these fatality numbers. The nationwide data did not track cell phones or fatigue, however.

The researchers pointed to the dramatic increase in use of handheld electronic devices behind the wheel as the basis for their conclusion on distracted driving.

Several state legislatures in 2010 have considered plans to increase the restrictions on young drivers with restricted licenses. Some states ban cell phone use for teen drivers, period (handheld or hands free).

The percentage of night-driving fatalities also was up (8 percent) for adults, but the researchers felt alcohol use probably was the main contributor to that rise.

Overall, fatalities fell about 11 percent in the 10-year period, according to data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The increased proportion of nighttime fatalities is what alarmed the researchers, who are based at Texas A&M.

The distracted driving dictionary

Like all social issues, distracted driving has a unique terminology that’s used by those involved in the conversation — legislators, police, activists, researchers and so on. Here, in context, are some of the key words and phrases used in the national debate over distracted driving:

Distracted driving: Covers a wide range of activities that draw away a driver’s attention from the road. Bills that seek bans on handheld cell phones and text messaging devices typically are classified as distracted driving legislation. In a broader sense, activities such as putting on makeup, operating a radio, using a GPS system, reading, wrangling kids and animals also classified as distractions to drivers.

Driving contract/pledge: An agreement between parents and teens outlining acceptable in-car behavior such as: no texting while driving, only emergency phone calls while driving (using hands-free attachment), only one passenger, no driving after 11 p.m.

DWD: Driving while distracted.

DWT: Driving while texting. See “Intexticated.”

FocusDriven: Advocacy group that seeks to end the use of cellular devices by drivers. The board is comprised of family members who lost children and other loved ones to accidents caused by drivers using cell phones.

GPS: Global positioning system. Use occasionally banned for drivers along with text messaging and chatting on cell phones. More typically, GPS use is allowed under distracted driving laws and legislation.

Handheld: Description of personal electronic devices requiring the use of one of two hands. A person holding a handheld cell phone typically takes one hand off the wheel in order to talk and drive. With text messaging, drivers often use both hands to send messages, using their forearms or knees to steer the vehicle. Laws and legislation typically use the term to differentiate from electronic devices that are built into the vehicle (such as a radio), or portable devices equipped with hands-free attachments such as Bluetooth headsets.

Hands free: Description of personal electronic device that requires no use of the hands. Most often used in connection with mobile phones that have been equipped with hands-free accessories such as a wire headset or Bluetooth headset. Some add-ons to cell phones allow drivers to dial by voice or to write text messages.

Intexticated: Slang for driving and texting behaviors such as weaving that are similar to those exhibited by drunken motorists. Some researchers say drivers perform better while intoxicated than while text messaging.

No Phone Zone: Safety campaign launched by talk show host Oprah Winfrey in January 2010. “The Oprah Winfrey Show” viewers are urged to sign a pledge not to engage in distracted driving behaviors such as texting or using handheld cell phones. In its first four months, the Oprah online sign-up page drew 325,000 pledges. Winfrey has hosted two specials on distracted driving, including one in which a governor signed a texting ban into law.

Primary enforcement: Lawmakers and police use this term to signify traffic offenses for which drivers can be stopped and cited. With “secondary enforcement,” law officers need another reason to pull over the drivers, such as speeding. Primary vs. secondary is a key dynamic in distracted driving legislation. In general, secondary enforcement is seen as a watered down approach to restricting drivers’ use of cell phones and text messaging devices. Some safety-conscious lawmakers have agreed to secondary enforcement in order to get distracted driving legislation on the books. In a few other cases, legislators have upgraded bills from secondary to primary in order to give the legislation teeth. And some states, notably Washington in 2010, have revisited their distracted driving laws in order to move from secondary to primary enforcement.

Secondary enforcement: Means police need another reason to stop and cite motorists who are in violation of a law such as a ban on texting. A ticket then can be issued for the secondary infraction. See “Primary enforcement.”

Want to add a term? Great! Use the comments feature below.

NSC looks inside ‘distracted brain’

Drivers talking on cell phones often enter a state of “inattention blindness” in which they fail to see up to 50 percent of what’s ahead of them, according to a new report from the National Safety Council.

The NSC once again makes the case against driving and using cell phones — including those with hands-free devices — this time backed by about 30 research studies. The NSC estimates that 25 percent of the U.S. crashes in 2008 involved cell phone use.

“Driver distractions have joined alcohol and speeding as leading factors in fatal and serious injury crashes,” the NSC said.

The white paper is called “Understanding the Distracted Brain.”

The NSC report maintains there is no such thing as “multitasking,” and that activities such as driving and talking on a phone require the brain to switch back and forth between these tasks. Researchers say there is a “reaction-time switching cost,” in which the brain changes its focus.

With cell phones and driving, “two usually unrelated activities become interrelated when a person is behind the wheel. These tasks compete for our brain’s information processing resources. There are limits to our mental workload.”

This likely explains the University of Utah study that found drunken drivers were better at reacting to traffic events than those who were on cell phones.

The NSC concludes, in part: “We know from other traffic safety issues — impaired driving, safety belts, speeding -– that consistent enforcement of laws is the single most important effective strategy in changing behavior.

“Education, policies, laws and technology must address the prevention of both handheld and hands-free cell phone use by drivers.”

Read the National Safety Council white paper (PDF).

Report: Urban areas best served by bans

Bans on handheld phones do work, and they work best in urban areas, according to a new study of traffic fatalities and injuries.

A University of Illinois team looked at New York state in the years before and after its 2001 ban on handheld cell phones.

All 62 counties in New York recorded lower motor vehicle injury rates after the ban, while 46 posted lower traffic fatalities — 10 of them at statistically significant levels.

When looking at three major population centers — the Bronx, New York and Queens — the personal injury decrease was more notable than in less populated counties.

“Hand-held cell phone bans are very valuable in high-density urban areas, but less so in lower-density rural areas,” said computer science professor Sheldon Jacobson. “But that doesn’t mean they have no impact in rural areas. It just means that such legislation is less likely to have an impact on driver accident rates.”

The Illinois study comes on the heels of an insurance-industry report that concluded handheld cell phone bans had little value. That study looked at collision claims following New York’s ban and found reductions, but dismissed them as part of a downward trend also found in neighboring states.

That widely publicized study by the Highway Loss Data Institute did not account for vehicles over 3 years old and did not include cell phone-related accidents in which claims were not filed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration called the study “irresponsible.”

Jacobson, who relied on publicly available data on fatalities and injuries per numbers of licensed drivers, said availability of insurance industry data on property damage would improve the reliability of his results.

Still, “All the evidence suggests handheld cell phone bans while driving are a good thing, and this is more evidence to that effect,” he said. “But it doesn’t establish it definitively. There’s still more work to be done.”

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