It has long been believed that talking on your cell phone while driving is tantamount to drunk driving. However, the original study that compared drunk driving with distracted driving seemed a little dubious: comparing intoxicated drivers with a completely separate group of drivers on cell phones doesn’t take into account independent driving abilities. And 40 participants were tested? Hardly conclusive.
Now it seems like there is little to no correlation between dangerous driving and driving while using a cell phone. According to Jalopnik:
The new study comes from economists Saurabh Bhargava at the University of Chicago and Vikram Pathania of the London School of Economics. They come at the question from a different direction, starting by using data from a cell phone company on up to 440,000 calls made from California drivers during an 11-day period in 2005. The researchers were able to separate drivers from other users by filtering for calls that switched among cell towers.
Their earlier research showed that when cell phone companies had rates that dropped at 9 p.m. on Monday through Thursday nights, calling jumped up. The economists matched their calling data with crash reports for just before and just after 9 p.m, when they could prove calls from drivers on the road increased, and found no significant increase in crashes. When they expanded their scope to additional years and nearby states, there was still no rise in wrecks.
Why is this data in stark contrast with what we’ve come to accept as truth so far? Well, first of all this is an account of real-world conditions – drivers who are out on the road while talking on their cell phones. And it’s not just that, but the economists had 440,000 calls to sift through, not 40 participants in a flawed test.
While I wouldn’t go encourage folks to drive and talk on the phone – it’s against the law in most states – it certainly sheds a new light on the old study. It seems drivers become more cautious while they’re on the phone, and a little extra caution certainly doesn’t hurt. Texting while driving, which requires you to take your eyes off the road, is another story.
[Via: Jalopnik]