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Shut Up And Drive

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By MYRON LEVIN

Special to the Los Angeles Times

Published: January 31, 2009

In mid-January, the National Safety Council called for a nationwide ban on the use of cell phones while driving, citing overwhelming evidence of the risk of injuries and death from driver distraction. California has banned texting behind the wheel and, along with several other states, prohibits the use of handheld phones while allowing drivers to talk with hands-free devices. But research has shown talking is risky even when both hands are free, because the mind is somewhere else.

About four in five cell phone owners make calls while driving, and nearly one in five sends text messages, according to a survey by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. The habit is so deeply ingrained that the likelihood of all-out bans seems practically nill.

Individuals still can make the sensible decision to hang up and drive, but they won't get any encouragement from the wireless industry.

Studies have shown that cell phone conversations can blind drivers to visual cues, slowing reaction time and situational awareness. Researchers at the University of Utah tested drivers and found that they performed no better, and by some measures worse, while talking on a cell phone than they did when they had a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent and were legally drunk.

Such information is not available on the CTIA Web site, a parallel universe designed to enable, not inform. It features the "why pick on us?" defense that drivers engage in all manner of distracting behaviors, from eating to applying makeup - as if one bad habit justifies a worse one. It says "statistics indicate wireless use does not equate to dangerous driving," offering as proof that during a recent period, accidents dropped while the number of drivers and cell phone users was increasing. Because many factors influence crash rates, such as drunken-driving enforcement and safer highway designs, it's a specious claim that proves nothing.

In fact, reliable statistics on cell phone-related casualties don't exist. That's because police agencies keep records differently and because motorists who crash while on the phone rarely admit it.

The number of fatalities appears to be large, however. In 2003, researchers at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis published an estimate of 2,600 deaths a year in cell phone-related crashes. About the same time, experts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration produced a more conservative estimate of 955 U.S. deaths in 2002 - a toll they said was sure to grow with rising on-road cell phone use.

Fearing the wrath of the wireless industry and its allies in Congress, federal officials suppressed the NHTSA estimate, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times in March.

But when tobacco companies were dragged into court on charges of deceiving the public about the risks of smoking, their defense, in so many words, was this: We didn't exactly lie, and even if we did, it made no difference because no one believed us in the first place.

Smoking and cell phone use are different things, but temptation comes in many forms. For some drivers, the first thought after starting the engine is whom to call or text. Faced with changing bad habits, we're prone to rationalization and selective hearing.

That's why what the cell phone industry says does matter. The appeal of chatting behind the wheel was a big factor in its phenomenal growth. Today, however, most everyone has a cell phone (there are more than 250 million U.S. subscribers), and companies increasingly depend on unlimited calling plans rather than minutes sold to bored commuters. Now that we're all in their pockets, it's hard to see what they would lose by urging us, unequivocally, to hang up and drive. Their message should be that if the call is that important, it's worth pulling over.

Levin is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer who writes about consumer issues.

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