Research

DRIVER STUDIES

While the following studies are beginning to help shed some light on the issue of cellular phone use in motor vehicles, it must be remembered that this is still a new area of concern. The fact that these studies focus on different populations of drivers and use differing research methodologies may lead to conflicting conclusions and may limit the comparability of the findings.

National Public Services Research Institute for AAA

A study done by the National Public Services Research Institute for AAA in 1991, "The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver Attention", used a driving simulator to test reaction responses while tuning a car radio, having a simple conversation on a cellular phone, dialing a cellular phone and having a complex conversation on a cellular phone. The conclusions were:

All forms of cellular phone usage lead to significant increases in response times or non-response to highway traffic situations.

Intense or complex conversation leads to the greatest increases in overlooking significant highway traffic conditions and the time to respond to them. The distracting effect is similar to that of tuning a radio. The effect of placing calls or engaging in casual conversation was less of a problem, although it did slow response times.
The distracting effect of cellular phone use among drivers over age 50 is two to three times as great as that of younger drivers and encompasses all three aspects of cellular phone use - placing calls and carrying on simple and complex conversation. The effect is to increase non-response by 33 - 38%.

Prior experience with cellular phones appears to bear no relationship to the distracting effect of cellular phone use.

University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute

According to a summary of a 1993 study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the study ranked, on a scale of 1 to 10, the relative distraction level of various tasks confronting drivers. The most distracting task, reading a map, was found to be almost twice as distracting as talking on a car phone, and changing a cassette tape was more distracting than talking on a car phone.

Association Between Cellular-Telephone Calls and Motor Vehicle Collisions

The results of a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto, "Association Between Cellular-Telephone Calls and Motor Vehicle Collisions", were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February of 1997. Studies were made of 699 drivers who had cellular phones and were involved in traffic crashes resulting in substantial property damage but no personal injury. Each motorists cellular phone bills were analyzed for the day of the crash and the week prior to the crash.

The results of the study showed that the risk of collision when using a cellular phone was four times higher that the risk when the cellular phone was not being used. Calls close to the time of the collision (i.e., within 5 minutes) presented a greater risk than calls placed 15 minutes or more prior to the crash. The risk was similar for drivers who differed in personal characteristics, such as age and driving experience. The study also found that cellular units allowing hands-free operation offered no safety advantage over hand-held units.

The researchers cautioned that "data do not indicate the drivers were at fault in the collisions; it may be that cellular telephones merely decrease a driver's ability to avoid a collision caused by someone else."

Thirty-nine percent of the drivers called emergency services after the collision, which suggests that having a cellular telephone may have had advantages in the aftermath of an event.

The authors noted that motor vehicles are a leading cause of death in North America and the most frequent cause of death for children and young adults. They also point out that driver error contributes to over 90% of collisions.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, using 1993 data, reports that of the 53,343 drivers involved in fatal crashes, 28 drivers, or two one-hundredths of one percent were involved in a fatal crash due to cellular phone use. However, these numbers were taken from police accident reports listing factors that may have played a role in a crash, and it is important to note that these numbers reflect only fatal crashes and not the much larger number of nonfatal crashes.

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