Projo Cars Blog

An informal study by Car and Driver magazine has concluded that driving while cell-phone texting is more dangerous than driving at the minimum legal level of alcohol in the bloodstream.

The results are so startling they will hopefully lead to a broader, more scientific study. And if the results are the same, they will hopefully lead to new legislation regarding cell phone use while driving, possibly at the federal level.

Hopefully, because it has long been obvious to me that texting while driving is absurdly dangerous. Indeed I speak with the humorless conviction of a convert who used to text (not for long, I might add) before I saw the light.

This is what Car and Driver found:

It took two employees, 22-year-old Web intern Jordan Brown and 37-year-old editor-in-chief Eddie Alterman, and put them in a Honda Pilot that had been rigged up with a small gizmo on the windscreen that duplicated the braking lights of a car in front.

It tested them on a straight line on the taxiway of an old airport in Michigan, randomly applying the red lights at 35 mph and 70 mph and measuring the reaction time and extra distance taken to brake under four different conditions.

First, a baseline was established; then the two men were tested while reading a text message, while typing a text message and, finally, while driving at the legal limit of 0.08 percent blood-alcohol (courtesy of some screwdrivers).

They were tested five times for each category. After the slowest findings were eliminated, the results were averaged.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the youthful Brown fared much better than the older Alterman, but even his reactions were worse when reading or typing a text message than when he'd had a few drinks.

Just looking at the average extra distance each traveled compared to the baseline braking time, at 35 mph Brown took an extra six feet to stop while reading a text message, an extra four feet while typing a text message and an extra one foot while driving impaired. Alterman took an extra 45 feet while reading, an extra 41 feet while typing and an extra seven feet while impaired.

At 70 mph, the results were even more dramatic. Brown took an extra 11 feet to stop while reading, an extra nine feet while typing and an extra 11 feet while impaired; Alterman took an extra 36 feet while reading, an extra 70 feet while typing and an extra four feet while impaired.

(Alterman's extra distance to stop while driving at 70 mph is counter intuitive because it is less than the distance he took while driving at 35 mph.)

This is an important study because it provides a push toward what I think is the only reasonable solution to the use of cell phones while driving: a complete ban on hand-held cell devices.

Such a law would require drivers to use hands-free devices which are readily available. Indeed, a number of countries, including Britain, have passed such laws and hands-free phoning is accepted as the norm while driving.

Rhode Island currently prohibits the use of hand-held cell phones by minors. While that is better than nothing, it is not much better because it is almost impossible to enforce.

Meanwhile, a bill to ban texting while driving cleared the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee in April but awaits further action.

Hopefully studies such as the one conducted by Car and Driver will force home the dangers of hand-held cell phone use while driving and make it as socially unacceptable as drunken driving - and just as illegal.

- Peter C.T. Elsworth

 Tags  Car and Driver DUI Safety Texting while driving

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