Do You Drive And Use Your Cell?

Now for some rebuttal of the research itself. According to Yue-Fang Chang, Ph.D. of the University of Pittsburgh (http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec0821/001.htm), as well as other bodies of reference regarding the 'Case Crossover Design' used for this study, there are a few qualifiers for the use and accuracy of this design:

1) The length of the 'Hazard Period', the period during which the effect(accident) occured, is critical to whether or not the association between the event(accident) and the exposure(mobile phone use) can be evaluated correctly. The problem in this study is that the 'Hazard Period' was different for almost all of the individuals and as a result the 'overestimating and underestimating' of this time interval was not mentioned or dealt with in the paper. To properly ascertain the 'Hazard Period' they needed to empirically determine it via grabbing a group of individuals and monitoring them to determine what the actual exposure times for the control intervals were. This would take out the recall bias (http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec0821/024.htm) which they dismissed because they claimed that other research was making the same mistakes and getting the same results as they were. (Duh) Oops, by empirical determination of the 'Hazard/Exposure' intervals they might have to conclude that the use of the mobile phone by itself is no more distracting that using your radio, closing your powered windows during a rainstorm, checking your speed when visibility is low, etc.... This conclusion would certainly not have gone over well with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. (The major contributing funder of the research, not to mention ther were no competing intrests per the paper.) Interesting that they did not show answers to the questions (Not that these questions were asked.) of "What else were you doing while using the phone and driving?" Of course this is only necessary of the individuals who were cited with being responsible for the accident, which brings me to the next point.

2) This next point is regarding stratifying the data and the use of the conditional logistic regression to compensate for the confusion of what other factors which were occuring at the same time as the use of the mobile phone (http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec0821/024.htm). Interestingly enough they did stratify some, not all, of the driving factors. They kind of missed the drivers' emotional state of mind during the 'Hazard period', as well as if there were any CHILDREN in the vehicles. (Oh yea, that would not do very well for the numbers either.) The most important factor that I saw missing from this paper was whether or not the drivers being interviewed were cited with being responsible for the cause of the accident, or whether the cause was unrelated to responsibility (e.g. mechanical failure). This is important as an inividual on the receiving end of a rear end accident (The most common accident site listed in the paper) would have to have his/her interval excluded from the 'Hazard period' totals since the use of the phone in this case is not causally related to the event.
(There I go again.)

3) I also found it interesting that of the 456 supposed drivers ONLY 40 of them were able to be included in the 'Hazard period'. I hardly consider this to be a valid amount for statistical sampling. In addition this was only mentioned in the rest of the paper, as opposed to the abstract. (Not too deceptive.)

4) Finally, don't get me started on the virtual dismissal of the necessary stratification of the types of hands free setups.

My conclusion is that while common sense dictates that doing anything other than driving, while driving, will take away from your capacity to drive well, it is essential that we empirically determine the degree to which one's driving will be affected prior to creating any policy regarding the suspected activity. This research is hardly reliable, accurate or empirically sound enough to use as a determinant of the degree to which one's driving ability is deminished by the use of mobile phones. It is even less of a determinant of the likelihood of getting into an accident as a result of this deminished ability.

Geez...I put up a story, get in my car and drive 200+ miles back to MA. So when I log on what do I see?....you guys are having too much fun!!

Steve, I always wondered why my wife was carrying that role of duct tape in her purse...

Real simple Acura has done it.. Bluetooth hands free!

Yes - I totally agree, and the voice-dialling is so annoying - it doesn't recognize an English accent. I just think that this technology is available - I think it needs to be readily available and priced such that we use it. I would also love it if it could somehow link to my cell phone.

Well Laura my car has that too but the packages are waaaaaaay to expensive. 200 minutes for $79!!! YIKES!

Well in one of our cars, we have ONSTAR which has many really good benefits - apart from the wonderful benefit of notifying emergency services if your airbag deploys and they can't reach you - but as well as that you can use it as a hands-free phone. Now I think all cars should come with ONSTAR or the equivalent.

Ummm how about making it mandatory for all cars to come with bluetooth and make all cell manufacturers supply bluetooth? Why is it always our responsibility? How about the companies spend some money for our safety!

I have always found that duct tape works very well with children. You can mute the volume and limit movement for less than $3.00. I keep a roll in each car :-)

I would heartily support a law that makes it illegal to use a cellphone while driving (except "handsfree" Bluetooth headset users).

And yes, there are plenty of other distractions available for the average driver (screaming children in the car, the stereo, nagging family, etc), but let us be realistic about it people: if you are ever distracted to the point where you feel that your ability to drive safely is diminished, you need to SLOW DOWN or PULL OVER and STOP until the distraction is resolved.

At least until they figure out how to incorporate a MUTE button into children... :)

You're right Steve - I think we should ban cell phone use in cars AND all children !!!

I have never really been diostracted while using my phone while driving. Of course I use a bluetooth headset. If you want to get right down to it there are far more dangerous distrations than a cell phone. A few that come to mind are driving with the radio on loud and of course anyone who has children can attest to the distrations they can casue.

The trouble is - having passengers in your car is equally distracting - I just wish that we could all stop driving. And why , oh why can't they raise the driving age here. In California a 16 year old can drive - much too young.

Also shut off your iPAQ ... I tend to do both!