My hypothesis is that cell phone use leads to safer driving.
I base my hypothesis on two threads of thought.
First, the well-known data suggesting that automobile safety devices lead to more reckless driving. The theory here is that drivers seek a more or less constant level of perceived risk to themselves, resulting in more reckless driving as they rely upon new safety devices. The data is pretty solid for both seat belts and air bags. My hypothesis is that drivers perceive themselves to be a greater risk while using their cell phone, and thus drive less recklessly.
Second, Instapundit noted, several months ago, that automobile accident rates had fallen sharply for reasons that were a mystery to insurance companies and regulators. So, there is at least a correlation: an unexplained fall in accidents at a time of increased cell phone use.
(I suppose I should cop to a third thread: I like counterintuitive explanations, and particularly those that make the goo-goos look like idiots.)
As someone noted on the Internet in the last week or so, the most effective possible safety device that could be added to cars is an eight inch spike jutting out from the steering wheel.
MORE: I should note that the NHTSA has just published the early addition of Traffic Safety Facts 2005. The accident rate is down, as are injuries, per one hundred million miles driven. The fatality rate is up slightly, by .02 fatalities per one hundred million miles, but (if I'm reading the report correctly) fatalities among occupants of motor vehicles are down. This is somewhat at odds with my hypothesis, although not enough to falsify it.
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11 comments:
Don't worry, Peter. Nothing I've said here applies to people talking on their cell phone in French.
Peter,
That's a different experiment. Your son is trying to WIN the race while on the cell phone. A real driver on real roads is trying to get somewhere SAFELY while on the cell phone. I'd be extraordinarily surprised if cell phones didn't cause people to lose races and/or crash, especially when there's no real cost to doing so.
My position is that even if fatalities are somewhat increased by cell phone usage, the lifestyle benefits and productivity for those that survive far outweigh the cost of a few fatalities. Life's dangerous - live it while you can.
David, if that were true then people wouldn't be driving while using their cellphone. The fact that people do shows that they don't think they're putting themselves at any greater risk.
And the facts aren't with you.
Duck, that's pretty weak.
People drive while drunk, so clearly people will do things while driving that make driving less safe. With cell phones, people obviously feel that the perceived benefit is greater than the perceived cost, and I can't even say that they are wrong.
As for that "experiment," it's laughable.
The logical end of this hypothesis is that the safest way of driving is to talk into the cellphone balanced under your chin while you watch one news channel on your in-car TV, listen to another on the radio, solve a Rubik's Cube with one hand and knit a scarf with the other, all the while dodging metal spikes that come shooting randomly out of your steering wheel.
Why not just issue blindfolds? Or better still, only allow profoundly deaf blind people to drive?
Brit wrote: "The logical end of this hypothesis..."
That's plausible, because if the "driver" was doing all those things they'd probably just pull over and park and it's fairly difficult to get into a fatal accident while parked. Ditto for deaf blind people.
First, the well-known data suggesting that automobile safety devices lead to more reckless driving.
True, except that equally well known data fails to show the necessary concomitant rise in accident rates.
IIRC, the Well Known Data came from a study that was not double blind. Those collecting the data knew both about the study, and whether the taxi cabs had air bags.
Also, IIRC, the fatality rate is up solely due to the fad among baby-boomers for Harley's. Not only are motorcycles overrepresented among motor vehicle fatality numbers, near-geriatric Harley riders are overrepresented among motor cyclists.
Re: cell phones and driving. Personally, on those rare occasions when drive and talk on a cell phone, I stop changing lanes, and allow even more following distance.
That has increased my accident rate from zero to zero.
I will comment here, despite the CAPTCHA, since Mr. Cohen is claiming complete seriousness. (note that my comment link works)
Beyond find the proposed causal chain weak, I see several other issues:
* What is the time scale for "recent" in the cases of greatly increased cell phone use while driving and decreased accident rates?
* As noted by Duck, I find it implausible that most cell phone users percieve such use as dangerous.
* I would suggest that accidents are down for the same reason crime is, a drop off in the number the young men. Demographic data on accident rates would be interesting in this regard.
...they'd probably just pull over and park and it's fairly difficult to get into a fatal accident while parked. Ditto for deaf blind people.
Heaven forfend it should ever happen, but I just can't see letting a little thing like deaf/blindness get in the way of my enjoying the freedom of the road.
To David:
> the most effective possible safety
> device that could be added to cars
> is an eight inch spike jutting out
> from the steering wheel.
I had this discussion a few years ago with some friends, and our train of thought went something like this:
-- airbags make people complacent, ergo a big spike would make them much more alert and risk-averse
-- it'd also kill people who get hit through other people's recklessness though, which isn't really fair
-- one solution: fit airbags to most cars, but one in every 1000 or so has a spike that shoots out of the steering wheel instead, but nobody knows who's got the spike until it goes off. That way, the Sword of Damocles keeps everybody risk-averse on the roads, but most people still get preserved in accidents.
-- better solution: fit an airbag and a spike to all cars, along with a hypothetical chip which, in the event of a collision, takes a tenth of a second to calculate whose fault it was, and they get the spike.
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