Comments on: Driving While Cellular

By: Will Brown

Will Brown — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:26:28 +0000

Stephen; I can’t find an on-line source for this, ut I recall from my US Navy days (Aviation Electrician’s Mate) some pretty well informed discussions ampong the pilots about talking while “driving” – specifically, talking to the approach controller while on final for a carrier landing. Using equipment that was designed to be as non-intrusive as possible, their concensus was that any verbal input by them was the cause of distraction and not the act of listening itself, whether to critical commands or light-hearted encouragement or simple confirmation of their approach orientation. In fact, it is USN SOP to instruct pilots not to reply to directions once visual acquisition of the ILS (Illuminated Landing System that visually orients the pilot down the approach glide slope) has been verbally confirmed by them. Something about the process of speech generation (even simple, automatic replies) measurably degrades the operator’s ability to concentrate on the ambient environment or the operation of even fairly simplistic machinery (try having a conversation with a carpenter while he’s making a saw cut sometime ).

By: Stephen Gordon

Stephen Gordon — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 07:53:18 +0000

Acksiom:

I’m neutral on the issue of banning hand helds in the car. My profession has given me an opportunity to observe (unscientifically) the risk. On the other hand banning hand-helds is still a loss of, however small, personal freedom. I’d guess I’d need to see a study showing how much safer hands free cells in the car are by comparison to hand-helds.

Does this make me meek? I’d like to think not. People (and societies) always make judgement calls about activities by weighing utility and risk.

Risk = Probability x Consequences

So, if there were a 25% chance of something bad happening that would cost me $100 were it to occur, it would be reasonable for me to spend $25 to protect against that risk. Anything more is overkill, anything less is carelessness.

When judging an activity, society should always seek to find the right numbers to plug into that equation, and then find the will to spend the right amount (not too much or too little) to protect against the risk.

By: Acksiom

Acksiom — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 00:39:09 +0000

It’s probably because most of us rely on our kinesthetic (and visual) input channels much more than we do our auditory ones while driving. Operating a car involves a lot of physical feedback, and handling a phone — or anything else, for that matter — tends to divide, and thereby reduce, one’s ability to respond appropriately to either set of physical inputs.

I’m fine with criminalizing hand-held use while driving. If the call is that important, people should pull over, or off the freeway, and park while they take it — either that, or invest in a hand-free system.

I’m not willing to just meekly accept the apparently significant increased risks to the safety of myself and my passengers that go along with others driving distracted.

By: David

David — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:45:17 +0000

An interesting phenomena. I find that I can pay as much attention to driving while on my cell phone as I can with an in-car conversation as long as I am using my headset. Without the headset, however, it feels like I need to give much more attention to the call. I have no clue as to why this is.