AT&T Releases Texting While Driving Documentary

[Jason Dunn]

<p><object width="600" height="360" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/DebhWD6ljZs&amp;ap=%26fmt=18" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DebhWD6ljZs&amp;ap=%26fmt=18" /></object></p><p>This is powerful stuff here &ndash; and it&rsquo;s part of the continued groundswell against texting while driving. If you&rsquo;ve&nbsp;<em>ever</em>&nbsp;read or sent a text while driving &ndash; and, shamefully, I have to put myself in that category &ndash; this is something you should watch. Please share it with other people as well. Texting while driving will only be curbed if it's considered as socially destructive as drunk driving - and the terrifying reality is that texting while driving is even <em>more </em>dangerous than driving intoxicated. And remember too that it takes two to text - if you know someone is on the road driving, and you're sending them texts, you're an equal part of the problem. Asking yourself if whatever you're saying to them can't wait a few minutes.</p>

[BevHoward]

imho, too little, too late. Texter's won't stop until they kill or maim someone...

...it's their life and the world needs to conform to their need to text and talk.

The only option is to keep a sharp eye out for them and an exit path.

Sincerely,
Beverly Howard

[Jon Westfall]

The only issue I have with this is that texting isn't inherently any worse of a distraction than any other - all distractions can be deadly*. The deciding factor is how long your attention is diverted from the road to your phone/radio/gps/makeup/kids/etc... I read a few years ago that "dangerous" drivers (those with poor records, many accidents) take their eyes off the road on average 2-5 seconds each time they get distracted. "Safe" drivers? an average of about 0.5 seconds. Text messages obviously take more than 0.5 seconds to read, so they can be a much more tempting time suck. However if you're reading them 1-2 words at a time (e.g., 1 fixation or glance) then spending 3-5 seconds on your mirrors and windshield (and obviously longer if necessary!), I don't think you'd be any more likely to get in an accident than glancing at the radio station, GPS readout, or gas gauge.

The difference is you need to think in terms of reading words or letters, not phrases or sentences, and obviously some people can't get that idea through their thick heads!

* P.S. I really can't understand how some women put makeup on while driving. In my mind that seems to make you engage in much more complex and distracting mental and motor movements than texting!

[BevHoward]

apologies for a disseration response Jon ;-)

My introduction to "cellular" came around 1995, and I arrogantly assumed that since I had almost forty years of full time flying experience which includes radio communication, that I would have no problem using a cellphone when driving... it took some guts to acknowledge that my use of a cellphone made me a dangerous driver... I've done it since, but not recently.

I did a one month "survey" about ten years when I was still commuting and the primary conclusion was that drivers using cell phones' attention was "down and to the right" ...assuming the phone was held in the right hand.

If a danger appeared somewhere between the right windshield post and their direction of travel, they might detect it, but it would take longer, and any event in any other quarter would not be detected until they removed their attention from the phone.

You can see this when passing someone using a cell phone... drivers not using a phone will almost always give some physical indication that they are aware of your presence, where a driver using a cell phone will almost never give any indication that they perceive a vehicle next to them, a fact that I am acutely aware of when I am on the motorcycle.

People don't learn... around six years ago my sister was talking to her best friend when the line went dead... she learned later that her friend had died as well. It would not surprise me if she, and her daughters, still phone when driving.

>> The deciding factor is how long your attention is diverted <<

An old argument... for the most part, the examples presented can be executed while keeping full attention on what's outside, and even with gps, since it's "graphic" it's information can be absorbed when in one's peripheral vision, something that's not possible with text... try to read something else on this page while holding your eyes on these words.

<end of rant> ;-)

[Jon Westfall]

I agree that down-and-to-the-right is a horribly dangerous practice - you cannot check your phone while driving as you would while walking. Mounting it in the same way you'd mount a GPS allows you to keep your head positioned correctly.

As for peripheral versus focal, you're right, it's easier to detect movement in the peripheral, which keeping your head up allows you to do.

[Jason Dunn]

However if you're reading them 1-2 words at a time (e.g., 1 fixation or glance) then spending 3-5 seconds on your mirrors and windshield (and obviously longer if necessary!), I don't think you'd be any more likely to get in an accident than glancing at the radio station, GPS readout, or gas gauge.

What worries me here Jon is the justification you're making - "It's OK if I text and drive as long as I can get the timing right". No offence, but I refuse to put the safety of myself and my family in the ability of someone to time-slice with 100% effectiveness. I don't want *anyone* texting and driving thinking that if they "do it right" it's somehow safe. It's not. It's kind of like someone saying that because they're blood alcohol level is "only" 0.06% then it's safe for them to drive.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

What worries me here Jon is the justification you're making - "It's OK if I text and drive as long as I can get the timing right". No offence, but I refuse to put the safety of myself and my family in the ability of someone to time-slice with 100% effectiveness. I don't want *anyone* texting and driving thinking that if they "do it right" it's somehow safe. It's not. It's kind of like someone saying that because they're blood alcohol level is "only" 0.06% then it's safe for them to drive.

I concur. Just put the damn phone down. And if you drive, don't drink.

Incidentally, I really hate drivers who think "a glass is fine". It's not. I take pains to tell people that. I know that as a photographer, one glass of wine is all that it needs for my shooting techniques to go down the drain. What more for someone operating a ton of steel and glass moving at 60mph or more?

[Jon Westfall]

I refuse to put the safety of myself and my family in the ability of someone

You already do this every day. Unless you live in a world where no one else exists, you always put your safety and that of your family in other people's hands. Reckless drivers are going to be reckless regardless of what they are doing, which is probably why the whole texting thing annoys me - because I totally see someone saying something like "I don't drive and text, so it's OK for me to have other distractions".

[Jon Westfall]

"It's OK if I text and drive as long as I can get the timing right".

Not exactly, more along the lines of "the level of danger rests with the abilities or limitations of the individual". Some people can handle distraction better than others (I'm probably not one of those people, FWIW). Does this mean they can text and drive? Probably not - but if they go to a driving course and pass it with flying colors 4 or 5 times while texting, would you still call them a danger?

[Jason Dunn]

You already do this every day. Unless you live in a world where no one else exists, you always put your safety and that of your family in other people's hands.

Come on Jon, you're misrepresenting what I said. Be fair. My exact words:

"I refuse to put the safety of myself and my family in the ability of someone to time-slice with 100% effectiveness"

Of course I put my safety in the hands of other drives when I go on the road - my point was a refutation of your statement that it's safe if the person reads one word at a time. I don't buy that. There are enough bad drivers on the road without heaping on the task of reading/writing. I don't buy the justification of "What I'm doing is normally considered dangerous, but if I do it this way, it's safe." That's no different than "I have a high tolerance for alcohol, so it's OK if I have just a few drinks - I'm different than other people."

At the root of all this though is the basic notion that we live in a world where people, typically teens/young adults, have an incessant need to be in near-constant contact with each other. There's something deeply wrong with the dependency I see in younger people. In a news report I watched it mentioned that a strong motivator for people to text while driving is that it's considered rude to not respond to a text immediately, regardless of where you are or what you're doing. That's seriously messed up.

Reckless drivers are going to be reckless regardless of what they are doing, which is probably why the whole texting thing annoys me - because I totally see someone saying something like "I don't drive and text, so it's OK for me to have other distractions".

Using that logic, you'd say then that all of the effort to curb drunk driving is a waste, because people are going to drink and drive anyway, so why bother?

I agree though that all distracted driving is dangerous no matter what the person is doing - texting, putting on makeup, eating, etc. But wouldn't you agree that it's easier to form a campaign for change around a particular aspect of distracted driving?

[Jason Dunn]

Not exactly, more along the lines of "the level of danger rests with the abilities or limitations of the individual". Some people can handle distraction better than others (I'm probably not one of those people, FWIW). Does this mean they can text and drive? Probably not - but if they go to a driving course and pass it with flying colors 4 or 5 times while texting, would you still call them a danger?

So what's solution then? That we start to hand out different types of drivers licenses, based on the ability of the individual to multi-task? Brain function like that would change with age, wouldn't it? So we'd re-test them every decade? What happens if an individual like that got into an accident while they were texting - if they had "proven" abilities to text and drive, would they be immune from prosecution for distracted driving?

I do get what you're saying...yes, some people can handle distractions while driving better than others - but somehow excluding people from the bans on texting that are popping up all over while driving is extremely problematic.

And, frankly, given the limitless potential for self-delusion that we exhibit as humans - just watch the first few episodes of any season of American Idol for proof of that - I'd be terrified to see how many people would peg themselves as "great multi-taskers" and use that as a justification for texting while driving. :(