More than nine people are killed and 1,060 people are injured every day in vehicle crashes reported to involve a distracted driver. Distractions include using a mobile device or eating, the CDC says. New data out last week on texting and driving has me fuming. This is a bit of a rant, just like the last time I wrote about data on texting and driving.
I’ve got a loathing for the terrible American habit to text and drive. I loved Oprah’s 2009 pledge. I love the AT&T bumper stickers I keep seeing. But something has to change as these strategies aren’t getting people to put their phones down. The majority of us are using devices that take our thoughts, our hands, and our eyes off those obstacles that fly by at 60+ mph. In a CDC survey conducted here in the US and in 7 other European countries, residents of the US led the charge with texting and emailing while driving:
Over 2/3 of American adults reported talking on their cell phone and nearly 1/3 said they’d texted or emailed while driving in the previous 30 days
Americans are doing the worst job and we all tend to see someone texting when we’re on the road. Easy to spot them with their heads down and their weird braking patterns. In part, our habit and addiction to our devices may reflect the state-by state-variance in laws and permission. Only 33 states and Washington, DC restrict cell phone use in some way. The laws may be too permissive. Here in Washington, we can use cell phones if we have hands-free devices. I do my best to keep my phone out of reach (back seat) to avoid any temptation to grab it when I hear a beep. Yet this data makes me feel I should stop talking on it, too. I use my cell phone to talk via a blue-tooth device built into my car, but more than once I’ve had to hang up as I felt it compromised my level of attention. Data on hands-free cell phone use is looking decreasingly optimistic. There are studies claiming it’s no safer when your hands are free and The National Safety Council reports that “driving while talking on cell phones, handheld and hands-free, increases risk of injury and property damage crashes fourfold.”
I wonder if our pattern of device use reflects our incessant, demanding, intolerable work culture here in the US, too.
On the heels of our nation’s hearty conversation about working at home and corporate (in)flexibility for parents in the work place spawned most recently by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s new policy forbidding stay-at-home work, it has me thinking. Do we all just work “too” hard? Are we working in the wrong way trying to squeeze too much in?
I bring up work culture because I wonder if the pressure to respond rapidly to demands at work compromise our sensibilities. Are our priorities so askew that we feel we have to respond at the next stoplight? Think of those Europeans who take August off…maybe they have figured someone out. Europeans aren’t texting or talking as much as we are when in the car.
In 2010, nearly one in five crashes (18%) in which someone was injured involved distracted driving here in the US.
I suspect some people text and email their friends at 30 mph. But I bet many Americans texting from the front seat are just trying to get their work done…while driving.
A 2011 CDC Survey Just Published On Devices And Driving:
- Online surveys of drivers aged 18–64 years revealed that the percentage of those who reported that they had talked on their cell phone while driving ranged from 21% in the United Kingdom to 69% in the United States.
- The percentage of those who reported that they had read or sent text or e-mail messages while driving ranged from 15% in Spain to 31% in Portugal and the United States.
- A significantly larger percentage of both men and women aged 25–44 years reported talking on a cell phone while driving compared with those aged 55–64 years, and a significantly larger percentage of men and women aged 18–34 years reported that they had read or sent text or e-mail messages while driving compared with those aged 45–64 years.
Teen are more dangerous drivers particularly in their first 6 months of driving. Young drivers under age 20 have the highest proportion of distracted driving fatal crashes. We can teach them to keep their purse/bag/backpack and cell phone in the back seat from the beginning.
What can the rest of us do? Am I way off thinking work may play a role in this?
Nurse Ora says
I know myself. I know that I give 100% of my attention to the caller on my phone, wherever I am. That’s why I don’t use a hands-free device. It wouldn’t help me. It’s not about my hands…it’s about my mind. I signed Oprah’s pledge in 2009, and I don’t use my phone while driving unless I pull over and park. It makes me angry when I see someone else driving and talking on their phone or looking down at it. I don’t know what we can do about this serious problem. Thanks for caring.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, MBE says
Nurse Ora and Peter,
I’ve taken to honking, pointing, and screaming at people that I pull up next to after I see them with their phones texting, talking or emailing. People often do look embarrassed but I have no idea if being caught in the act changes what they do. And really, it’s distracting for me. My heart races when I do this stuff.
Just last week I got all fired up and the person sitting in the passenger seat of my car with me grabbed a photo of a woman while she was “driving’ while drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, and holding her phone. No joke.
I get so angry that children, pedestrians, and other drivers have to share this kind of road…
I think you both bring up the lack of “policing” of the issue. Here in WA, no one is pulled over for breaking the law while talking on phone ( with hands) and texting. So it leaves the citizens responsible for doing the dirty work and that just doesn’t seem right.
Peter Bryan says
Wasn’t there some technology that came out recently that restricted mobile devices from being used in a moving vehicle unless both hands were on the device?
We can hypothesize about the cultural differences ad nauseum; the US leads Europe in so many ways and has done so for years but sadly this absurd cultural obsession with technology and ‘being plugged in 24/7’ is here to stay. The best we can do is regulate against it and perhaps introduce our children to the merits of mindfulness vs mindlessness.
I like to let other drivers know that I know they’re not paying attention. What follows is nearly always a look of surprise followed by denial in their eyes.
Melissa Ripka says
I don’t think it’s work-related. For me to be pulled to my phone, it feels like a habit. At a stoplight or waiting in a line, I feel the urge to see if anything’s happening. Social Media is more nagging for us to see what’s happening, at any second. Facebook’s stream refreshes for you – it’s so different than before we had mobile devices. Used to be that we found out news on TV when we got home from work. Now we know within seconds if something happens anywhere in the world.
I make the conscious effort to keep my phone in a bag or away while driving, and I don’t even consider myself that addicted (compared to my husband and some friends). When I am with my kids I will keep my phone in another room, because I want my attention to be on them. But I had to make that decision and become aware of it. My job is in the internet industry and so being online is what I do, 8+ hours a day … checking my phone in the car isn’t because work is pulling me there. Mobile devices feed the short attention span that we develop from the habit of using them.
Ann Soutter says
I have complained of this on a post on face book, when I
challenged my friends if they consider texting at a red light as
texting while driving. Most of them had no problem with doing it at
a stop light. Just because your foot isn’t on the
accelerator…..to me it is still texting while driving and most of
us are parents of teenagers, who are or will soon be driving. Just
look around at your fellow drivers at a red light. Most of them are
looking down at their laps, and I assume at their phones…..drives
me crazy!
Mary says
I completely agree that there needs to be more effort to put out the positive message, “When you get in the car, your phone goes in your bag in the backseat.” My MIL is one of the worst offenders I know, and I think we have now convinced her to keep her phone in her purse in the backseat.
We really need a multifaceted effort on distracted driving-sentimental appeals featuring victims families and people who have killed others while driving distracted, education about what people should do with their phones while in the care, and law enforcement efforts similar to “Click It or Ticket.” I know many people who only wear seatbelts because they have been ticketed and don’t want to risk it again.
Courtney says
While I whole heartedly agree that texting, emailing, and doing anything else that requires us to look at the phone is a bad and unsafe idea… I really have a difficult time believing that talking on a telephone is anymore distracting than talking to the person sitting in the passenger seat. I have a difficult time believing talking (not reading) on the telephone is more distracting than mom’s reaching into the back seat fussing with children’s pacifiers, snacks and toys.
I really think the dramatically increased rates for Americans who ‘confess’ to talking on the phone in the car is the amount of time Americans spend in the car. It would be interesting to see if there is away to compare the percentage of individuals reporting cell phone use while driving, compared with the average amount of time spent in the car per week.