Driver Distractions
Summer Issue: October 2009
From November 1 it will be illegal to drive while talking or texting on hand-held mobile phones. Drivers caught breaking the new rule will be liable for fines of $80 and 20 demerit points. If 100 or more active demerit points are accumulated within a two-year period, a licence can be suspended for three months; driving while suspended can result in a car being impounded and the driver charged.
However, the law will allow people to drive while talking on phones with hands-free devices - even though research shows it is just as dangerous.
The problem is not so much the practical challenge of holding a cellphone while changing gear or steering. The problem is one of concentration. Drivers' brains process a lot of complex physics quite subconsciously, and this takes effort - as anyone who has driven a long distance will know.
Conversations cut across this sort of processing. Adult passengers tend to be sensitive to the driving task and pace their conversation accordingly. Children are not so good at this. They often try to get the driver's attention - sometimes just at the wrong moment. But even children will pipe down if they realise they might be in a dangerous situation. Callers on a phone, however, have no idea what is going on and keep demanding the driver's attention regardless.
Research on driving simulators at Waikato University has found the crash risk from mobile phone use is similar to drink-driving.
This was proved in 2006 when Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the United States Federal Highway Administration fitted out 100 cars, 78 privately owned, with hidden cameras, radars and sensors. The resulting 43,000 hours of recordings included a lot of singing and 'personal grooming', which indicated the drivers had forgotten they were being recorded. The system captured 69 crashes, 761 near-crashes and 8,295 incidents of heavy braking. Mobile phones caused twice as many crashes, near-crashes and incidents as distracting passengers.
But the Virginia Tech study revealed more than cellphone distractions. It found that in 80% of the crashes and near-crashes drivers were not looking where they were going three seconds before impact. There is evidence that inattention in general is one of the main causes of car crashes.
In New Zealand, Police ascribed 'poor observation' as a cause of nearly half the crashes in 2008. Although no one would admit to a Police officer they weren't looking where they were going, the Police could at least report that drivers did not see what they ought to have seen.
The scale of the problem of inattentive driving is significant because it underlines the fact that making things illegal doesn't stop them happening. People don't stop looking where they are going because they want to crash or break laws. They simply get distracted or underestimate risk.
In many ways the problem is similar to drink-driving. For decades New Zealanders underestimated the risk of drink-driving. What anti drink-driving advertising did was change the culture. It created social scenarios people could relate to and showed them the consequences of different responses. This recipe worked and it can work again.
There is no Police force in the world as powerful as the public itself. While a law validates concerns, Police can't be everywhere. Only the public has the power to improve its own safety through self-management.
Driver inattention, whether it is caused by cellphones, passengers, roadside attractions, day-dreaming or fatigue, is the prime road safety hazard. Teaching people how to recognise it and deal with it - in themselves and in others - is the best solution.