Research in real-life situations has shown that using a hand-held cell phone to text or call while driving is not safe. Driving - even with today's cutting-edge safety technology - is too important a responsibility to try to do while being distracted by a hand-held cell phone.
A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study found that 80 percent of all crashes involved the driver looking away from the road just before a crash. While that study was fairly recent, Alliance members have long understood the importance of keeping drivers' "eyes-on-the-road."
In 2000 we began voluntarily developing guidelines - the first comprehensive ones ever - for vehicle-integrated features that allow drivers to manage tasks while maximizing the time they spend looking at the road. Our Driver Focus-Telematics (DF-T) Guidelines were developed with input from a range of experts and are based on scientific research. The guidelines include principles that guide where systems are located, how information is presented to the driver, how drivers interact with these systems and much more. They ensure that new vehicle technologies are designed from stage one to assist the driver in driving safely.
After developing these principles, with input from a wide array of safety experts, we followed-up with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to put these guidelines into use. We then went further. We have updated the guidelines as our continued scientific understanding of driver distraction evolves.
Today, the evolution of our understanding of this issue is more critical than ever. We must address distracted driving, but we must do it without undercutting developing technologies that will help in making driving even safer.
Auto makers are working on important safety advancements right now that rely upon wireless communications as the backbone. In the near future, cars will be linked wirelessly to other cars in their vicinity and physical surroundings to, first and foremost, enhance road safety by informing drivers of hazards and situations they can't see. Real-Time Road Navigation will also be provided, which will be critical to advancing how we manage road congestion and even further reduce CO2 emissions from vehicles as we reduce the time a vehicle sits in traffic.
So what should be our roadmap from here? We need appropriate laws with high-visibility enforcement. The Alliance supports a ban on texting while driving using a hand-held device and a ban on calling while driving using a hand-held device unless in hands-free mode.
We need consumer education so drivers know that - even with the cutting-edge technology found in today's vehicles - driving distractions are a risk. Not just hand-held texting and hand-held calling but even a driver's eating, drinking, searching inside the car, trying to monitor children in the back seat -- anything that's prolonging a driver's "eyes-off-the-road time" presents a risk.
And we need continued research so we can further understand driver behaviors.
And all of this should be done without severing the wireless communication link to vehicles which enables tomorrow's safety and environmental benefits.
Dave McCurdy is president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers which represents BMW, Chrylser, Ford, General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen.
Actually what should be researched is a car that drives itself.
if you look away just for a second something could go very wrong, the car in front could do a hard brake, an animal or child runs into your way, something gets dropped off the truck in front of you, etc.
all requiring a split second decision. How many times did you observe someone on the phone while driving and really goofing up, coming into your lane, having an accident, etc. There should be no
discussion and if people are not smart enough to figure that out then pass a law PERIOD! I even have to turn off my radio when concentrating in a new area or I am pressed for time.
The recommendation of “what’s next” does not go far enough in suggesting what can be done now to reduce risk dramatically beyond legislation, in-car technology and education to help individuals take responsibility. Recent discoveries about how the brain works make it clear that brain performance is the biggest factor in crash risk. It is also clear that brain performance can be improved with the right mental exercises (just like physical fitness improves the body).
We built DriveSharp, a brain fitness software program recommended by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, to put those discoveries into practice. DriveSharp’s clinically-proven technology makes people safer behind the wheel by training the brain to think faster and react quicker. This could be made available from auto manufacturers and insurance companies, similar to the pilot work we’ve done with Allstate. For more information, please go to www.drivesharp.com
If on the other hand, its Ok to talk on the phone as long as you have a hands free device, it stands to reason then that the risk lies in not having both hands on the wheel. If you take this to its logical conclusion, then you need to ban all manual transmissions, because as a stick-shift driver, I know very well that at least 50% of the time in city, you have one hand on the gear shifter, not the wheel.
I'm all for making efforts to eliminate distractions, but lets do it in a logical and rational fashion, not in a knee jerk fashion that doesn't address the real issues
My issue though is that I think law-makers are trying to make it appear as if they are doing something, but in all reality, they are missing the root causes.
If the argument is that the distraction of the conversation is the dangerous element, then how can they stop and just banning cellphones, isn't a real life conversation with someone in the back seat just as dangerous? What about changing radio stations or the A/C settings. It would follow that if you ban cell phones while driving, due to the distraction, then you need to elimitate the other distractions as well, and hands free devices won't mitigate the risk.
There's also a need to do something about the capricious and arbitrary nature of speed enforcement.