Driving Distractions

Texting bans were put into place to prevent more traffic accidents from happening. In a new study it was found that texting may actually increase traffic accidents. Nowadays, mobile phones, most namely smart phones, are practically another appendage. Americans especially are so used to having the technology around, that without it most don't know what to do with themselves. This is one of the reasons why having a ban on using a cell phone while in the car is such a difficult law to enforce, especially when a majority of Americans spend upwards of 3 hours a day in their vehicles. This approximation takes into account commuting to work, taking kids to school and extracurricular activity, as well as running errands. On top of that, many cities in America aren't small enough for the necessities to be within walking distance. Taking into account all of these daily life activities, no wonder people are not following the law.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Laws against using mobile devices to send and receive text messages while driving don't reduce crashes, according to a new study by the Highway Loss Data Institute.

In fact, not only do bans fail to decrease crashes, they may slightly increase crash risk, the Institute said.

Texting bans may only encourage drivers to hold the phone down low in the car, an HLDI spokeswoman said, making the behavior even riskier.

"Texting bans haven't reduced crashes at all. In a perverse twist, crashes increased in 3 of the 4 states we studied after bans were enacted," said Adrian Lund, president of both HLDI and the related Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Both groups are funded by the insurance industry.

Researchers compared insurance claims data in the months before and after texting bans were enacted in California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Washington state. They also compared that information to data from neighboring states in which no such bans were ever enacted.

Institute statisticians considered other unrelated factors that could have caused the increase in crashes, including ordinary month-to-month fluctuations. None accounted for the increases, the Institute said.

"We were as surprised as anybody to find this out." said HLDI spokeswoman Anne Fleming.

The federal government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation, criticized the Institute's study.

Transportation secretary Ray LaHood called the study misleading

"Distracted driving-related crashes killed nearly 5,500 people in 2009 and injured almost half a million more," LaHood said in a prepared statement. "Lives are at stake, and all the reputable research we have says that tough laws, good enforcement and increased public awareness will help put a stop to the deadly epidemic of distracted driving on our roads."

The HLDI and NHTSA have been sparring in recent weeks with the privately funded Institute accusing NHTSA of devoting too much time and resources to the issue of texting while driving while not focusing enough on factors like drunk driving and speeding that cause far more deaths.

The new study doesn't mean that texting while driving is safe, Institute spokeswoman Fleming said, only that current legislation isn't an effective way to deal with the problem.

"We know this is a hazard," said Fleming. "It's just that, so far, the laws are not working."

In an earlier study, Institute researchers found that laws banning hand-held phone use, likewise don't reduce crashes. Those laws didn't increase crash rates, though.

Other laws governing what drivers do inside their cars, such as laws requiring seatbelt use, have proven to be effective, Fleming said, so researchers initially expected texting bans to be at least somewhat effective, too. But seatbelt use is easier to enforce because a shoulder belt can be seen from outside the car.

A driver who is texting while driving in violation of a law may simply hold the phone down low and out of sight, Fleming said, making the behavior even riskier.

Technology may hold some answers to the problem of texting while driving, Fleming said. Software programs can restrict the use of texting features while a car is in motion. Also, some cars allow text messages to be read aloud and even allow drivers to compose or select text responses using their voice. That way, their eyes are at least on the road ahead.

Voice texting may not be entirely effective, however, Fleming said. Research has found that voice calls, for example, are just as distracting even when a hands-free device is used.

Reposted from CNN.

It's been said over and over, AVOID texting and driving! It could save your life. Studies now show that distracted driving could be the main cause of traffic fatalities. Properly train your employees with Distracted Driving training from Wumbus Corporation!

Distracted Driving Tied to Traffic Fatalities

Distracted driving crashes were linked to 5,474 fatalities and 448,000 injuries nationwide in 2009, alone, said ABC News.

“People [need to] take personal responsibility for the fact that they’re driving a three or four thousand pound car,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, speaking to ABC News. “If you’re looking down at a cell phone for four seconds or a texting device for four seconds, you’re driving the length of a football field without looking at the road,” La Hood added.

Although traffic deaths did drop to their lowest levels in 2009 since 1950—due in part, to mandatory seatbelt laws and a decrease in drinking and driving—drivers are, increasingly, using cell phones, which led to an increase of 16 percent from 10 percent for traffic deaths tied to distracted driving crashes linked to cell phones from 2005 to 2009. “We’re right at the starting gate here in terms of where the country was at when nobody buckled up and now 85 percent of the people buckle up,” LaHood said. “It took 10 years to get that,” he added, quoted ABC News.

Drivers under the age of 20 tend to be the most distracted when driving, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA), but those likeliest to be using a cell phone while driving were people aged 30 to 39, said the NHTSA report, said ABC News. “It is very concerning and it’s concerning to the extent that most young people think they’re invincible,” LaHood told ABC News. “You need to put the cell phone and the Blackberry in the glove compartment right after you buckle up.”

LaHood is convening the second National Distracted Driving Summit in Washington to collaborate with “transportation officials, safety advocates, law enforcement, industry representatives, researchers, and family members of victims of distraction-related crashes,” wrote ABC News. LaHood is urging penalties for texting drivers, pointing out that deaths due to drunk driving did not decrease until drivers began getting arrested and losing their licenses, said ABC news.

LaHood said he is speaking with firms regarding the development of a cell phone outfitted with a chip, or implanting cars with a chip that disables cell phones when the car’s owner is in the driver’s seat, reported ABC News.

Meanwhile, we wrote in January that truckers and bus drivers are banned from texting when driving. The Washington Post recently reported that cell phone use and texting while driving leads to an astronomical 1.6 million automobile accidents annually, according to estimates by the National Safety Council (NSC). This means, that at the time the data were compiled, 28 percent of all vehicular crashes that occurred on US highways each year are the result of drivers texting or talking on their cell phones.

In July, Virginia Tech’s Transportation Institute revealed that texting truckers are 23 times likelier to either be involved in a crash or a near miss, said the Washington Post. According to the NSC press release, 1.4 million crashes each year are caused by drivers using cell phones with a minimum of 200,000 additional crashes each year caused by drivers who are texting.

We have long been following accidents resulting from drivers texting or talking on cell phones when driving. For example, in 2008, the Federal Railroad Administration issued an emergency order prohibiting all train operators from using cell phones while on duty. The new rule was issued years after it first considered the matter, two weeks after the California Public Utilities Commission imposed the same restriction, and one day after the National Transportation Safety Board issued a preliminary report saying that text messages were sent and received by Metrolink engineer Robert M. Sanchez’s cell phone in the moments before his commuter train collided with a Union Pacific freight train that September. Twenty-five people died and 135 sustained injuries in that accident.

Reposted from NewsInferno