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I don't think that talking on the phone is any more distracting than using your A/C, radio,cruise control or navigation.
Actually,with speed dial and Bluetooth they are probably less of a distraction than other devices in your car.
Texting,however is the major cause of deadly accidents.I think that texting while driving should have the same penalty as DWI
I could have quoted any number of posts that say talking hands free on the phone is not distracting. While @Jenkay posted a great, but long summary of it, but there have been tons of studies on this.
Your brain uses different areas to do different things. To (over) simplify, it can only control one main task that takes significant concentration at a time. It can do other tasks at the same time, but those tasks must be simple and general involve things like muscle memory. So you can generally drive and eat, listen to the radio, or even reach down and change the stations in a car you are familiar with without too much distraction - as your brain can simplify the task and leave the concentration on driving. However, a conversation on the phone (and to a lesser extent a passenger) takes over the main part of the brain and then driving goes to the simple/muscle memory part. This allows you to still generally drive, particularly straight (and one study showed even to some degree simple right turns) ok, as your body is trained to do this. You will even slam on the brakes if something jumps out in front of you because that is the automatic reaction. The problem is, you get bad at the complex part of driving, like checking your mirrors, knowing if there is a car in your blind spot next to you, seeing the deer on the side of the road that is about to jump out in front of you, seeing speed limit signs, and unfortunately, occasionally missing the color of the light or the car that you just turned left in front of.
While this is totally anecdotal and not a scientific study - I see first hand what even a passenger does to you. I remember following a good friend of mine when we were on a road trip. We were on a 2 lane road that would occasionally go through some towns so the speed limit would jump around from 50 down to 30 or 25 when we got to a town. The first part of the trip his wife (as a passenger) had a work call and he would adjust his speed with the speed limits, doing about 5 over, so ranging from 30-55. After his wife got off the phone they apparently got to chatting and he kept the car at about 45 MPH the whole time, regardless of the speed limit, sometimes then being 5 MPG under and sometimes up to 20 MPH over. He still was driving fine, but not paying attention to his speed, the speed limit, or I'm sure the final details of driving. That slows reaction time slightly making a near miss into an accident.
By the way, studies also show that many people think they drive just fine while talking on the phone, even though they don't and are unaware of what they do wrong or don't do while talking on the phone. Some studies do show however that there is a small percent of the population (less than 2%) that actually are really good a multi tasking. The problem is, 75% of the people think they are in the 2% (The 75% part is something I made up, not part of the actual study).
Texting is worse because in addition to being distracted, you literally take your eyes off the road meaning you can't react at all to what is happening, but focusing on something else like a conversation still is pretty bad. Singing a song you know the words to is not focusing on another task. That said another study showed that almost everyone turns the volume down on the radio while driving in really bad rain storms and such. So it seems the more concentration you need for driving, the less your brain can handle any distraction even those that it is not focusing on (slightly contradicting the other studies that show no distraction listening to the radio.
TL;dr - talking with a passenger is a little distracting. Talking on the cell phone is more distracting. Most people think they are good at it but aren't.
I was born before 1980. Back then people were driving around with giant paper maps trying to figure out where they were while driving.
While we tend to look back as the old days with rose colored glasses, in realty traffic fatalities today are over half of what they were back in the 70’s.
Hmmm, drum brakes, no air bags, lousy tires, very little safety features, people not wearing seatbelts, horrible handling and the list goes on. It is hard to compare today with back in the 70's because cars have advanced in a huge way. Deaths should be going down and down a lot, but in the past two years as people are addicted to texting and whatever while driving deaths are back on the rise. I think it is worse now considering how great cars are these days to prevent death.
Hmmm, drum brakes, no air bags, lousy tires, very little safety features, people not wearing seatbelts, horrible handling and the list goes on. It is hard to compare today with back in the 70's because cars have advanced in a huge way. Deaths should be going down and down a lot, but in the past two years as people are addicted to texting and whatever while driving deaths are back on the rise. I think it is worse now considering how great cars are these days to prevent death.
Deny it all you want, but I recall people reading a paper map while driving, smoking, and shifting a manual.
People have always been distracted. Now they’re just distracted by something else.
I could have quoted any number of posts that say talking hands free on the phone is not distracting. While @Jenkay posted a great, but long summary of it, but there have been tons of studies on this.
Your brain uses different areas to do different things. To (over) simplify, it can only control one main task that takes significant concentration at a time. It can do other tasks at the same time, but those tasks must be simple and general involve things like muscle memory. So you can generally drive and eat, listen to the radio, or even reach down and change the stations in a car you are familiar with without too much distraction - as your brain can simplify the task and leave the concentration on driving. However, a conversation on the phone (and to a lesser extent a passenger) takes over the main part of the brain and then driving goes to the simple/muscle memory part. This allows you to still generally drive, particularly straight (and one study showed even to some degree simple right turns) ok, as your body is trained to do this. You will even slam on the brakes if something jumps out in front of you because that is the automatic reaction. The problem is, you get bad at the complex part of driving, like checking your mirrors, knowing if there is a car in your blind spot next to you, seeing the deer on the side of the road that is about to jump out in front of you, seeing speed limit signs, and unfortunately, occasionally missing the color of the light or the car that you just turned left in front of.
While this is totally anecdotal and not a scientific study - I see first hand what even a passenger does to you. I remember following a good friend of mine when we were on a road trip. We were on a 2 lane road that would occasionally go through some towns so the speed limit would jump around from 50 down to 30 or 25 when we got to a town. The first part of the trip his wife (as a passenger) had a work call and he would adjust his speed with the speed limits, doing about 5 over, so ranging from 30-55. After his wife got off the phone they apparently got to chatting and he kept the car at about 45 MPH the whole time, regardless of the speed limit, sometimes then being 5 MPG under and sometimes up to 20 MPH over. He still was driving fine, but not paying attention to his speed, the speed limit, or I'm sure the final details of driving. That slows reaction time slightly making a near miss into an accident.
By the way, studies also show that many people think they drive just fine while talking on the phone, even though they don't and are unaware of what they do wrong or don't do while talking on the phone. Some studies do show however that there is a small percent of the population (less than 2%) that actually are really good a multi tasking. The problem is, 75% of the people think they are in the 2% (The 75% part is something I made up, not part of the actual study).
Texting is worse because in addition to being distracted, you literally take your eyes off the road meaning you can't react at all to what is happening, but focusing on something else like a conversation still is pretty bad. Singing a song you know the words to is not focusing on another task. That said another study showed that almost everyone turns the volume down on the radio while driving in really bad rain storms and such. So it seems the more concentration you need for driving, the less your brain can handle any distraction even those that it is not focusing on (slightly contradicting the other studies that show no distraction listening to the radio.
TL;dr - talking with a passenger is a little distracting. Talking on the cell phone is more distracting. Most people think they are good at it but aren't.
If a pilot can do it, so can a driver. Some drivers do better than others.
The point isn’t what’s distracting you but how easily you get distracted.
I often wonder how one's life is going when I see that they can't buy a 20 dollar phone holder and use bluetooth or speaker and drive at the same time.
I blow my horn ,if they don't like it too bad,because it'll be way worse for them if they injure anyone in my car or others.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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A very good friend was killed on bike by a hit and run driver Txting former student (who had taken 3 yrs of my friends diligent mentoring to get through graduation.
I was born before 1980. Back then people were driving around with giant paper maps trying to figure out where they were while driving.
While we tend to look back as the old days with rose colored glasses, in realty traffic fatalities today are over half of what they were back in the 70’s.
BECAUSE we still used maps (occasionally) we had much better spatial recall of our surroundings and thus didn't need them for long unless in a completely new location like on vacation. Now people are in their own town and have to use GPS...and they are on their phone texting, playing games, and (rarely) talking which is likely the least distracting thing to do on a phone.
Fatalities are less because cars are made better - not because drivers are doing any better!
BECAUSE we still used maps (occasionally) we had much better spatial recall of our surroundings and thus didn't need them for long unless in a completely new location like on vacation. Now people are in their own town and have to use GPS...and they are on their phone texting, playing games, and (rarely) talking which is likely the least distracting thing to do on a phone.
Fatalities are less because cars are made better - not because drivers are doing any better!
I’m calling BS on all that. Drivers back in the day sucked, and their cars sucked.
Everybody on these threads pretends their a bunch of boyscouts but everyone of you have been distracted by kids in the car, smoking, eating a McRib, messing with the cassette player trying to find the beginning a song, and have used your phone. Your “spatial recall” won’t tell you there is an accident up ahead but Google will and we all know you’re using Google.
I used to use paper maps all day before GPS because I lived in a new city every 3 years and my sense of navigation sucks. I also thumbed through a giant CD case while driving looking for a different album every 5 minutes or so. Then came in car navigation, but it was terrible and the auto manufacturer’s lawyers disabled the keypad while in motion forcing me to use my phone anyway. Now I can push a button and have Siri play whatever I want, call my parents, read and respond to text, and my navigation’s voice recognition is half decent.
The answer is to throw better technology at the problem and not expect people to change their behaviors.
And people back in the 70’s and 80’s were at least as stupid as people today. Nobody can look back at the 70’s and 80’s with a straight face and say those were a bunch of geniuses running around.
For those who claim talking on a cellphone isn't distracting, here's some science. This article specifically addresses hands-free cellphone use and its effect on our cognitive processing.
The technology exists where the phone would not allow you to use it (surf the web, text, etc) outside of using a hands free device or Bluetooth connection while it is in motion in a moving car. It would solve a lot of the problems with people texting or tweeting while driving... but then you get people against the implementation because (what about the passengers or what not).
So progress is never made and careless drivers keep causing property damage and personal injury to innocent bystanders.
This behavior is endemic in my area. I see weaving, slow driving, sitting at green lights, etc. everyday of the week. Phones are simply too much a part of everyday activity to give up their use when behind the wheel and the law makes no difference when the chances of getting caught are slim to none.
If you want justice in a distracted driving accident you call a lawyer.
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