by Mike Blain
The Free Press
They strike fear into the hearts of pedestrians, stroller pushers and bike messengers everywhere. They ignore their turn signals, wander across double yellow lines and make last-second, multi-lane, "Oh, there's my exit" maneuvers like Michael Jordan weaving through heavy NBA traffic. And Washington state troopers say they're often difficult to pull over because they're oblivious that an officer is hot on their tail flashing red and blue.
Bank robbers in getaway cars? No. Drunk drivers? Not quite. They're drivers with cellular telephones busy wheeling and dealing while careening through heavy Puget Sound traffic. Their blood alcohol content might be .00, but they are intoxicated nonetheless - buzzing with the freedom of being able to conduct business while driving to and fro.
Studies have linked car phone use to driver inattention. And law enforcement officials, through first-hand experience, know full well that chatty drivers can be careless drivers. But the Washington State Patrol and Seattle Police Department don't keep track of accidents caused by drivers focusing more on their conversations than other cars.
And, while some insurance companies punish ostensibly less-attentive smokers through higher rates, there is no similar actuarial distinction for drivers prone to have car phones in their hands.
Everybody's Doing It
By the end of 1992, about 11 million Americans were using cellular phones, with 7-8 million of those being car phones, according to Jim Caile, marketing vice president for the Chicago-based Motorola, a major manufacturer of cellular phones.
Caile predicted that by the year 2000, 36 to 40 million Americans will be using cellular phones, with more than 25 million of those being car phones. Helping to fuel the market growth is radical price-slashing; low-end phones now go for less than $100. Car Toys and Magnolia Hi-Fi - two top cellular phone retailers in Puget Sound - are currently giving away phones costing more than $1,000 just four years ago. Customers, in exchange, must commit to 120 days of cellular service. Retailers can afford to do this because cellular providers pay them a $300 commission for each new customer.
As car phone use continues to grow, many questions are being raised about their effects upon driver attention, and as a result, upon traffic safety.
"Some people can do a good job," said Lt. Dick Smith, a 29-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol. "But frankly, I don't see that many good drivers out here, especially drivers who are talking on car phones."
More than 300,000 cars come into or through Seattle each day via I-5, I-90 and SR-520, says Smith, and this traffic is condensed into a very small area. "Under those types of conditions," he added, "you need to pay as much attention to what's going on in front of you, behind you and beside you as possible."
That might be difficult if you're paying attention to your boss on the other end of a telephone. Cellular phone manufacturers claim they have put safety first when designing car phones; they say such features as speed dial, speaker phones and voice-activated phones help to leave one's hands free to drive. Studies show that the physical act of using a car phone is no less distracting than smoking a cigarette or tuning a radio. However, a car phone's effect on a driver's attention - his or her mental and perceptual processes - is much more disturbing.
Dial 'D' for Distraction
A study done in 1991 for the American Automobile Association's Foundation for Traffic Safety compared driver response under five levels of distraction: placing a cellular phone call, carrying on a "simple" cellular phone conversation, carrying on a "complex" phone conversation, tuning a radio, and no distraction. In the study, 151 subjects watched a 25-minute video containing real-life driving conditions and "drove" by using simulated vehicle controls.
The study, which used "hands off" cellular phones, found that "all of the distractions led to significant increases in both the number of situations to which subjects failed to respond and the time it took to respond to them." Complex conversations appeared to cause the greatest distraction, simple conversations the least and tuning the radio fell in between.
"Casual social conversation (on a car phone) is probably no more distracting than talking to a passenger," the study's authors wrote. "However, an intense business conversation could well divert a driver's attention to the point that cues of potential danger may be overlooked."
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'I don't see that many good drivers out here, especially drivers that are talking on car phones.' -Lt. Dick Smith, Washington State Patrol
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Prior cellular phone experience appeared to have no effect, but the age of the driver was very significant. Drivers over 50 were two to three times more likely to be distracted than younger drivers, increasing non-responses by 33 to 38 percent. The authors said older drivers should be steered away from using car phones while driving, and that all drivers should avoid "intense" conversations while in a moving car.
These study results should come as no surprise. It is self-evident that someone talking on the telephone while driving doesn't have their attention fully focused upon the road. And although tuning a radio ranked in the middle of the "distraction" spectrum, researchers pointed out that the time drivers spend tuning a radio is much less than that spent making business phone calls.
Dammit Jim, I'm a Cop, not a Statistician
While this and other studies may have established a link between car phone use and driver distraction, no one has formally studied car phone use and traffic accident rates.
Several Washington state law enforcement officials interviewed for this article said they have cited car phone users for driving negligently. However, an analysis of car phone-related accidents is nearly impossible. "There are no statistics kept on car phones and accidents in the state of Washington," said Ralph Wessels, a travel analyst with the state Department of Transportation.
While the police can write on an accident report that a car phone was a "contributing factor" in a crash, neither the state patrol nor the Seattle Police Department's forms have specific categories to indicate that an accident was caused by driver inattention due to using a car phone.
"There is no code that says you can't use a phone while driving," said Sgt. Jules Werner of SPD's traffic section. "The fact that the driver is on the phone is not necessarily important to us; it's the behavior that's important - crossing the center line, weaving etc." Law-enforcement officials and auto insurance agents point out that many accident victims don't see the other driver before a collision, just the vehicle. Therefore, they would not have seen if a car phone was being used. And, insurance agents said, few drivers voluntarily tell an officer that an accident was caused because they were on the phone at the time.
All of this means that accident reports involving car-phoning drivers either don't mention car phones at all, or they get mixed into the statistics with all the other accidents caused by driver inattention, such as falling asleep at the wheel. "That's about as specific as it gets," said Charlie Saibel, a research analyst with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. A 1991 report by the commission says driver inattention was a contributing factor in 15.1 percent of all collisions in this state.
Police officers and cellular phone manufacturers did point out, however, that car phones have been invaluable in faster reporting of highway accidents, fires and crimes. In some serious traffic accidents, instantaneous reporting via car phones has enabled rescuers to save people who otherwise might have died.
Higher Insurance Rates Coming?
When studies and statistics in the 1970s and 1980s linked cigarette smokers with higher traffic accident rates, some insurers responded by offering a rate discount to non-smokers. Of the three largest auto insurers in Washington - Farmers, PEMCO and State Farm - only Farmers offers such a discount. Although agents from those companies said car phone use has been a factor in some of the claims they've handled, they said it wasn't something that turned up very often. Yet.
From Farmers' headquarters in Los Angeles, spokesperson Jeff Byers said that if studies similar to the ones done on cigarette smokers were done on cellular phone users, his company would certainly pay attention. "If there was a preponderance of evidence that showed that car phone drivers have X number of accidents," he said, "we would definitely take a look at it."
In the meantime, you can be sure that as the number of drivers using car phones multiplies threefold by the end of the decade, there will be more accidents involving people who probably should stick to calling from phone booths. Until then, remember: Friends don't let friends dial and drive.
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Contents on this page were published in the June, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.