Quoted message said:Yes, a recent study in a fairly sophisticated lab
setting did this not very long ago and the results
were frightening.
The study was total [censored]. It assumed that people who knew they were
driving a (rather unrealistic) computer simulation and thus totally
safe no matter what they did would divide their attention the same way
that they would if they knew that inattention might result in their
injury or death. ISTR there were other obvious flaws in the
methodology, but, like you, I no longer have the reference. The whole
exercise was blatantly designed to "prove" the predetermined result.
I note that the TRL experiment also used a simulator; the conclusions
seem similarly tenuous (slowing down when using a mobile phone but
speeding up when drunk seem not to have struck them as significant, for
example).
My observations have been that people talking to passengers appear more
dangerous than those talking on phones, because they keep turning their
heads to look at the person they are talking to. And let's not even get
started on the combination of solo adult driver plus several fractious
children.
The anti cellphone thing is no better than the martlehat thing, IMO.
It's fashionable, but based on poor science. It takes a single factor,
and demonises it out of proportion to many others at least as bad or
worse. If we really cared about drivers' competence, we would have a
real driving test, make people re-sit it every 5 years, do roadside
tests for reaction times, hand/eye coordination etc. and prosecute
people who fail (tired is just as bad as drunk, and some folks just
flat out are not capable of driving safely at any time), and - most
important - really punish those who drive badly. Of course, this would
be electoral suicide, so instead we pretend that mobile phones are the
problem and banning them will somehow cure inconsiderate and
incompetent drivers of their faults.
--
Peter Headland
