Driving Distraction; A smartphone is no more villainous than a bagel. - Pri...

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Driving Distraction; A smartphone is no more villainous than a bagel.

Wall Street Journal (Online) [New York, N.Y] 08 Jan 2011: n/a.

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[...] distracted driving in some sense is probably the source of most non-drunken accidents, beyond the nearly 20% that a recent federal study claims.

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Author: Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. Any who wondered how much of a fresh start the administration would seek after its midterm humiliation will want to take note of Ray LaHood's continued presence as Transportation secretary. Mr. LaHood distinguished himself last year during the Toyota fiasco by publicly suggesting owners should stop driving their Toyotas, despite the absence of any evidence the cars were unsafe. He sat mutely during a congressional hearing while legislators and trial lawyers flogged an unsupported theory about electronic defects in Toyotas, never sharing his agency's ample wisdom on the real subject at hand. He presides over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the world's leading authority on sudden unintended acceleration, yet failed to note overwhelming evidence that the real menace to drivers is their own right foot stamping the gas instead of the brake. With that preamble, Mr. LaHood is on to a new subject, "distracted driving" due to cellphone use by motorists. He calls it a deadly "epidemic" on the highways, but once again he is spreading darkness as much as light. No less a harridan for safety than the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has dubbed his campaign misguided. The group's own studies show that the numerous laws enacted around the country to ban or restrict cellphone use have produced no impact on accident rates. Even where phone use has measurably declined, crashes haven't. The lesson here is not that distractions don't cause accidents. In fact, distracted driving in some sense is probably the source of most non-drunken accidents, beyond the nearly 20% that a recent federal study claims. Police are usually dependent on drivers to tell them what caused an accident, which does not promise the most reliable data. Realistically, though, drivers who are paying attention don't commit crashes. But notice something else. The highway death rate has fallen to its lowest level since 1954, despite a doubling of population and quadrupling of vehicles on the road. The highway fatality rate has been dropping steadily for the past five years, despite Mr. LaHood's alleged epidemic. By definition, smart phones are implicated in more accidents today than they were before smart phones were invented. But it appears that drivers simply substitute one distraction for another, yakking on the phone instead of spilling coffee in their laps, gobbling down hot dogs or trying to control kids in the backseat. The real trouble begins with the ominous noises Mr. LaHood has been making in the direction of the Detroit auto makers for trying to accommodate wireless devices in vehicles. Ford and others sensibly point out that drivers will bring their mobile phones into vehicles no matter what vehicle designers do. Safety is served by meeting their compulsive networking halfway, allowing them to check messages, make calls and tap the cloud by voice

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command rather than by fumbling with a touchscreen. As Ford's Alan Mulally told CNBC this week, "We want your hands on the wheel. We want your eyes on the road." Mr. LaHood has lately emphasized "personal responsibility" after provoking an uproar with hints that he favored an outright ban on wireless devices in vehicles. His real convictions on the matter, however, are worryingly clear. He never tires of touting his agency's success in banning phone use by bus and truck drivers, even though these professionals (as you might expect) are better disciplined than private drivers, less likely to be involved in an accident and less likely to be at fault. The truth is, an electronic device is not more villainous than a bagel. Before the hubbub over texting and phoning in cars, when the death rate was higher than today, one study estimated that in a typical crash the driver's eyes were diverted from the road for a full three seconds (nearly 200 feet at 45 mph). As with the Toyota fiasco, Mr. LaHood should be a voice for data and reason rather than just another lusty pursuer of bandwagons (like the congressman he once was). His war against distracted driving would be a clearer public service if it weren't threatening to devolve into a self-defeating war on gadgets. Auto makers are the ones acting from a higher wisdom here, making peace with the reality of mobile networking behind the wheel. Credit: By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

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Subject: Traffic accidents & safety; Fatalities; Smartphones; Vehicles LaHood, Ray Driving Distraction ; A smartphone is no more villainous than a bagel. Wall Street Journal (Online) n/a 2011 Jan 8, 2011 2011 Business World Opinion Dow Jones & Company Inc New York, N.Y. United States Business And Economics Newspapers English News 822779601 http://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=http: //search.proquest.com.ezp1r.riosalado.edu/docview /822779601?accountid=40965 (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. 2012-02-22 National Newspapers Core

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