Talking on mobile as bad as drink driving

On the news today:
Research at Utah uni proved that having a conversation while driving is as
bad as driving with 0.08% alcohol in your blood i.e. over the limit. This
applies equally to hands free operation.
More details on ITV teletext page 324.

Which neatly confirms UK research done more then 10 years ago and reported
(IIRC) on Tomorrows World.
It concluded that the GSM lossy compression relies on your brain to 'fill
in' the missing sound, and therefore it's
not the same as having conversation with your passenger (who also sees when
you need to pay closer attention to driving and pauses the conversation).

Don't shoot the messenger, just reporting the new / old news.
Regards,
Martin
(done it few times myself..., and I learned it's bloody dangerous)

---

› See More: Talking on mobile as bad as drink driving

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 02:57:55 +0100, Martin² wrote:

> On the news today:
> Research at Utah uni proved that having a conversation while driving is as
> bad as driving with 0.08% alcohol in your blood i.e. over the limit. This
> applies equally to hands free operation. More details on ITV teletext page
> 324.
>
> Which neatly confirms UK research done more then 10 years ago and reported
> (IIRC) on Tomorrows World.
> It concluded that the GSM lossy compression relies on your brain to 'fill
> in' the missing sound, and therefore it's not the same as having
> conversation with your passenger (who also sees when you need to pay
> closer attention to driving and pauses the conversation).
>
> Don't shoot the messenger, just reporting the new / old news. Regards,
> Martin
> (done it few times myself..., and I learned it's bloody dangerous)

Whenever I see an offender, it's usually a woman though I must also credit
them with stopping for calls too. I see a lot of them having stopped to
take calls.

Martin² wrote:

>On the news today:
>Research at Utah uni proved that having a conversation while driving is as
>bad as driving with 0.08% alcohol in your blood i.e. over the limit. This
>applies equally to hands free operation. More details on ITV teletext page
>324.

>Which neatly confirms UK research done more then 10 years ago and reported
>(IIRC) on Tomorrows World.
>It concluded that the GSM lossy compression relies on your brain to 'fill
>in' the missing sound, and therefore it's not the same as having
>conversation with your passenger (who also sees when you need to pay
>closer attention to driving and pauses the conversation).

>Don't shoot the messenger, just reporting the new / old news. Regards,
>Martin
>(done it few times myself..., and I learned it's bloody dangerous)

The law doesn't address it. Or at least, not that bit of it.

If it is the act of deciphering the speech which is "dangerous" whilst
driving, that will be equally so when using a hands-free set - which, of
course, is perfectly legal.

The research would therefore have been more significant if it had been
"discovered" that steering with only one hand was the dangerous bit,
because it's the only bit of making a mobile call whilst driving that is
banned.

"JNugent" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]

[snip]

> The law doesn't address it. Or at least, not that bit of
> it.
> If it is the act of deciphering the speech which is
> "dangerous" whilst driving, that will be equally so when
> using a hands-free set - which, of course, is perfectly
> legal.

Indeed, as is using *any* other form of 2-way radio communication, such as
CB, Amateur Radio, PMR (business, taxi) radio, police/fire/ambulance
radios and a whole lot more I could think of, all with hand held
microphones as well..!

Or listening to car radios/stereo systems.

Come to think of it, let's ban passengers, they talk all the time, or at
least the ones I carry seem to..!

> The research would therefore have been more significant
> if it had been "discovered" that steering with only one
> hand was the dangerous bit, because it's the only bit of
> making a mobile call whilst driving that is banned.

Let's ban manual gearboxes as well then..!

Ivor

Lenny wrote:
>
> Whenever I see an offender, it's usually a woman though I must also
> credit them with stopping for calls too. I see a lot of them having
> stopped to take calls.

The closest I ever came to death was when a woman who had stopped on the
hard shoulder of the M40 finished her phone call and then pulled straight
back onto the slow lane at 10mph.

John Rowland wrote:
> Lenny wrote:
>> Whenever I see an offender, it's usually a woman though I must also
>> credit them with stopping for calls too. I see a lot of them having
>> stopped to take calls.
>
> The closest I ever came to death was when a woman who had stopped on the
> hard shoulder of the M40 finished her phone call and then pulled straight
> back onto the slow lane at 10mph.

Slow lane? Alpha lane?

"Colin Forrester" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]
> John Rowland wrote:
> > Lenny wrote:
> > > Whenever I see an offender, it's usually a woman
> > > though I must also credit them with stopping for
> > > calls too. I see a lot of them having stopped to take
> > > calls.
> >
> > The closest I ever came to death was when a woman who
> > had stopped on the hard shoulder of the M40 finished
> > her phone call and then pulled straight back onto the
> > slow lane at 10mph.
>
> Slow lane? Alpha lane?

Well 10mph is certainly slow ;-)

Ivor

John Rowland wrote:
> The closest I ever came to death was when a woman who had stopped on the
> hard shoulder of the M40 finished her phone call and then pulled straight
> back onto the slow lane at 10mph.

I love it when people stop to talk on their phone on the approach to a
blind bend, so you have to pass them on the wrong side of the road and
hope no-one is coming the other way. So much safer than answering while
driving.

Mark

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 10:57:23 +0100, John Rowland wrote:

> Lenny wrote:
>>
>> Whenever I see an offender, it's usually a woman though I must also
>> credit them with stopping for calls too. I see a lot of them having
>> stopped to take calls.
>
> The closest I ever came to death was when a woman who had stopped on the
> hard shoulder of the M40 finished her phone call and then pulled straight
> back onto the slow lane at 10mph.

They do seem to just pull over wherever.

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 13:03:27 +0100, Colin Forrester
<[email protected]> wrote:

>John Rowland wrote:
>> Lenny wrote:
>>> Whenever I see an offender, it's usually a woman though I must also
>>> credit them with stopping for calls too. I see a lot of them having
>>> stopped to take calls.
>>
>> The closest I ever came to death was when a woman who had stopped on the
>> hard shoulder of the M40 finished her phone call and then pulled straight
>> back onto the slow lane at 10mph.
>
>Slow lane? Alpha lane?

Otherwise the known as the "fast" lane.

The lane that keeps moving when everything in the outside lane has
just panic braked to a halt.

The only lane it's really safe to go faster than 70mph in. If you are
in the outside lane then the traffic density means that it's not safe.
If you are the only car on the road which would be the only time it's
really safe to go quick (don't have any ramdom idiots whose actions
can't be predicted) then you should be in the nearside lane and again
it's the "fast" lane.
--
Peter Hill
Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header
Can of worms - what every fisherman wants.
Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

On Sat, 1 Jul 2006 02:57:55 +0100, "Martin²" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Research at Utah uni proved that having a conversation while driving is as
>bad as driving with 0.08% alcohol in your blood i.e. over the limit.

Er, not. That is the legal limit. They did the tests to compare with
people who were at the limit, not above the limit. To quote the
report: "Participants drove in the 15-min car-following scenario while
legally intoxicated" - though whether they mean "legal but
intoxicated" or "intoxicated as defined by the law" is not clear. The
tests were started at 0.081% and finished at 0.079% so either
interpretation is valid.

The legal limit is set at a level that is considered to be safe to
drive at. Personally, I have my doubts about that, but that is the
law. What a pity they didn't also do the tests with the drivers
clearly above the legal limit (say 0.09%)

They did the tests in the morning, when a low amount of alcohol is
likely to have far less effect on driving ability than it would in the
afternoon or evening.

"...because simulated drives were conducted during mornings,
participants who got drunk were well-rested and in the "up" phase of
intoxication."

What a pity they didn't run the tests at a different time as well.

>his
>applies equally to hands free operation.

These tests were bollocks as far as that is concerned. They were
testing people having conversations using hand-held or hands free
phones. The essential difference between these is in how you make
calls, not when speaking on them. Though I do accept that the fact
that you only have one hand to drive with will make a difference in
real world driving too!

>More details on ITV teletext page 324.

Better to read the actual report from
http://www.hfes.org/Web/PubPages/celldrunk.pdf

One of the interesting results of reading the actual report rather
than the (misleading) summary headline is that the results showed that
people using a phone reacted more slowly, but drove more carefully,
whereas people with 0.08% of alcohol reacted more slowly, but braked
harder and did not drive more carefully.

The task was to follow a pace car which kept braking at random and
then speeding up. People on the phone tended to speed up less quickly
after slowing. Big deal.

Drivers who had been drinking drove closer to the car in front, so
they had to brake quicker. Drivers using a phone tended to back off a
bit, so perhaps their slower reactions were a result of that, rather
then the phone call.

"In the current study, the performance of drivers
with a blood alcohol level at 0.08% differed
significantly from their performance in both the
cell phone and baseline conditions"

>Which neatly confirms UK research done more then 10 years ago and reported
>(IIRC) on Tomorrows World.
>It concluded that the GSM lossy compression relies on your brain to 'fill
>in' the missing sound, and therefore it's
>not the same as having conversation with your passenger (who also sees when
>you need to pay closer attention to driving and pauses the conversation).

Er, no, it does not confirm it at all. It is pretty obvious that any
conversation is a distraction, and one where the other party is not
there is likely to be more of a distraction, but its not valid to
suggest this means lossly GSM compression makes a difference.

It would be dead easy to do those same tests using a mobile phone and
a superb quality hi-fi audio connection, but they didn't make that
comparison so you cannot draw the conclusion from their results.

I also have severe doubts about the validity of tests using simulators
of this type. If you look at the photo of the simulator
http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/1291.php you can see that it
is not very realistic. I suspect that a real life situation would give
the driving task a higher priority in the subjects minds, but not in
what is clearly a computer game.

To be honest, I think it's a pity that this research was not done a
little more intelligently, because it came so near to providing
extremely useful data. But they didn't quite get it right.

--

Iain
the out-of-date hairydog guide to mobile phones
http://www.hairydog.co.uk/cell1.html
Browse now while stocks last!

On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 12:33:08 GMT, [email protected] wrote:

>I am more concerned about stupid women using mobiles on pavements they
>just walk along yak yak and don't give a damn who they bump into I
>have got to the stage now where I brace myself and wait for the
>collision . Quite a few mobiles have ended up on the pavement with
>their owners close to laying along side them in a few instances .

I'd love to see an arrogant twat like you try that sort of trick with
some women I know. But I'd not bother to visit you in the hospital.

--

Iain
the out-of-date hairydog guide to mobile phones
http://www.hairydog.co.uk/cell1.html
Browse now while stocks last!

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
> On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 12:33:08 GMT,
> [email protected] wrote:
>
> > I am more concerned about stupid women using mobiles on
> > pavements they just walk along yak yak and don't give a
> > damn who they bump into I have got to the stage now
> > where I brace myself and wait for the collision . Quite
> > a few mobiles have ended up on the pavement with their
> > owners close to laying along side them in a few
> > instances .
>
> I'd love to see an arrogant twat like you try that sort
> of trick with some women I know. But I'd not bother to
> visit you in the hospital.

I would, just for the laugh.

Ivor

It amazes me how some TV programs get away with interviews while
driving.
On Top Gear they look into a camera and speak.

On Cash Cabs he even turns around while driving to speak to people.

Anything that distracts you from the road is dangerous.


Nigel.




Martin² wrote:
> On the news today:
> Research at Utah uni proved that having a conversation while driving is as
> bad as driving with 0.08% alcohol in your blood i.e. over the limit. This
> applies equally to hands free operation.
> More details on ITV teletext page 324.
>
> Which neatly confirms UK research done more then 10 years ago and reported
> (IIRC) on Tomorrows World.
> It concluded that the GSM lossy compression relies on your brain to 'fill
> in' the missing sound, and therefore it's
> not the same as having conversation with your passenger (who also sees when
> you need to pay closer attention to driving and pauses the conversation).
>
> Don't shoot the messenger, just reporting the new / old news.
> Regards,
> Martin
> (done it few times myself..., and I learned it's bloody dangerous)

Wrighty wrote:

> It amazes me how some TV programs get away with interviews while
> driving.
> On Top Gear they look into a camera and speak.
> On Cash Cabs he even turns around while driving to speak to people.
> Anything that distracts you from the road is dangerous.
> Nigel.

I thought it was well-known that such sequences are a trick and that the
vehicle being "driven" is being conveyed on a low loader.