Hands-Free Driving Laws: Dumb
It’s wireless safety week. I know, I know, it seems to come faster every year.
I’ve always felt that cellphones get a bum rap when it comes to driving. I think it’s safe to say that the evidence is clear that aimless chatter while driving is dangerous.
But so is: eating a bowl of cereal while you drive, reading a newspaper, typing on a laptop, taking a photograph and arm-wrestling. All things I’ve seen fellow drivers do throughout my years on the road. Yet legislators, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the cellphone — not innate human stupidity — is to blame.
The greater irony though, is that the proposed remedy — “a hands-free law” that forbids you from holding a cellphone but lets you use a headset — is as bad as the disease. That’s because according to nearly every published study (and here, here and here) hands-free headsets don’t make you any safer.
That’s because what makes cellphones dangerous in the car is not the act of diverting your eyes to press buttons or using a hand to hold the phone. No, it’s the lack of driver focus on the road. As one expert once put it to me, when two people talk inside a car, both are aware of the road and the conversation adjusts to external events (i.e. if a car in front of you starts to skid, the conversation stops). During a phone call, only the driver is watching the road. It’s the talking, not the handling of equipment, that is the fundamental danger when driving.
From an industry perspective hands-free driving laws likely have a healthy unintended consequence of driving more headset sales. But from a safety perspective, it appears to be nothing more than a placebo.
dgaccetta commented:
I agree that it may not make us safer when talking, but the largest
problem that I see is people texting while driving. Yes this would
cost more money, and the CE industry will see a one one millionth
of a percent increase in sales, but it would make it a little bit
safer. Let me give you an example. Most young unexperienced drivers
are easily distracted, right? Well, those are the same people that
text while driving. In the last year, how many accidents involving
young drivers and cell phones were there. My wife works in the
county ER, and I hear these stories of teens texting and driving at
least 5-6 times per week. Is it a perfect solution, NO. But if it
something our government is willing to work together to do, that's
better than what they are doing now, and it may help save some
live.
dgaccetta commented:
Benjamin commented:
But for politicians it is a win win, it forces people to buy stuff,
and people think they are safer. I personally cannot stand
headsets, so I invented a new kind of speaker phone called the
talknbluetooth (you can find it on the web) and sales are booming
because of laws. People are finding headsets uncomfortable and
switching over to speaker phones. I think the biggest distraction
is not necessarily the talking on the phone but dialing it.
Hopefully technology will get us out of that one with voice
recognition. Well I hope they don't eventually ban cars because
they are dangerous. I like my phone and my car.
Benjamin commented:
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