Ontario's cell phone law - unintended consequences?

We won't know for some time - maybe ever - if Ontario's hand-held cell phone ban will have any impact on traffic safety.

Regular readers know what side of that fence I'm not sitting on, to mangle a metaphor.

Have you noticed fewer people talking on their phones since the ban went into effect?

I haven't.

OK, I'm the one always saying you shouldn't use anecdotal evidence to support arguments. And as long as the police are issuing warnings instead of real fines and/or demerit points, there aren't really any consequences of breaking the law yet.

But we're already hearing suggestions that some people are trying harder to disguise the fact that they are still using their phones - for example, sticking the unit between ear and shoulder and driving all hunched up and tense, hardly conducive to safe motoring.

Could this ban make driving LESS safe?

I my own self have been trying to utilize the hands-free kit that came with my (relatively new) Samsung cell phone, with the pair of earbud earphones and the dangling microphone which makes me look like I live under a bridge and am communicating with aliens.

(My phone apparently is Bluetooth-enabled, but who has time to figure out how that works? In a different car every week?)

So, whose ears are these earbud earphones designed for? Certainly not mine. The left bud barely fits in, and the right one just sits there hanging from the lower 'curl' of my ear. If I turn my head a fraction either way, they both fall out and I have to fumble to put them back in.

Certainly that's less safe than holding on to the phone itself.

Now, driving with earbud headphones is hardly conducive to safety either, and may even be banned depending on jurisdiction and interpretation of the law. So when I DO use my hands-free kit, I only have one ear 'budded'.

A couple of years ago I received a photo of a prototype device that probably should qualify as hands-free:

For instructions on how to make your own, check out this YouTube video.

The Hansard of the Common Man - Follow-Up Number Three

Some readers have asked about the source of the research upon which I base my contention that hands-free cell phones are no safer than hand-held. Here's one report:

New England Journal of Medicine report

This report in Psychology Matters cites different, newer studies from a variety of sources which essentially come to similar conclusions, although one study differentiates conversations by their 'complexity' - simple calls won't cause the same degree of distraction as more complicated ones, which makes some intuitive sense.

One study mentioned here also delivers the first evidence I've seen so far which does in fact assert that conversations with in-car passengers also cause driver distraction of a dangerous degree.

Now, to show you that we are as always balanced and fair, there is a website that claims hands-free IS in fact safer than hand-held. My reading of their report makes me believe that their conclusions are not based on actual research data, but on their assumptions about what goes on in a car. They also quote a CNN TV report as as source. Hmm-mm - I think I'll stick with Drs. Redelmeier and Tibshirani.

The Hansard of the Common Man - Follow-Up Number Two

Thanks to all of you who have replied to and commented on my rant on hand-held versus hands-free cell phones. Given the dead-slow Internet access I am still suffering through out here at Kenzie World Headquarters (I thought the Rogers USB Rocket Stick was the answer to my prayers; it wasn't) it is very difficult for me to even post all the comments, but I am trying.

The rant also appeared in the print edition of Wheels Saturday, and generated another big response.

Some of you agree with me; some don't. Hey - that's what makes life interesting.

I did get a call from Dr. Bob Saturday night. One of my best friends from toddler stage, he became my kids' dentist. Hadn't spoken to him in a while, but he called after reading the piece in Wheels to report - HE WAS ONE OF THEM.

He was driving down from his summer place on Georgian Bay, chatting with his daughter on his Bluetooth-equipped hands-free cell phone. He was driving through a small town he has driven through a million times. He knows the speed limit here is 50 km/h. He always obeys it.

But when he glanced down at the speedometer, he was going 70. He hadn't been paying attention because he was on his phone.

On his hands-free phone.

He got away with it on two levels: He wasn't nabbed for speeding; and he wasn't involved in an incident.

But when he got home and read my story, he realized that this is exactly what I was talking about.

He was Exhibit A for the prosecution, namely that inattention behind the wheel is not a function of manipulating a device; it is a function of lack of mental engagement.

As such, the ban on hand-held devices is doomed to be political grandstanding, with little to no material benefit.

OK, maybe a few people won't text while driving. But if they were ever stupid enough to think that was acceptable behaviour behind the wheel, the (very low) threat of a ticket isn't likely to stop them.

Also, distractions like touch-screen SatNav are not covered by this law.

Some argue that this law is better than nothing.

If it is, it is only extremely marginally so.

There are vastly more important safety issues we should be charging our road designers, sign painters, lane marking painters and police with fixing and enforcing.

Let them get on with it and stop wasting our time and tax money.

The Hansard of the Common Man - Follow-Up

One of my editors tells me that my blog/rant on the upcoming cell phone law generated a bazillion page views in the first few hours. He put it on The Star's Home Page and it got a couple bazillion more.

That makes him happy. Happy editor; happy writer...

It has generated tons of comments too, which I am 'person-fully' attempting to publish. (I have had Internet and e-mail issues for the past week at Kenzie World Headquarters; I'm now in a hotel in Germany with high-speed, so YAY!)

Said editor also tells me not to try and reply to each and every comment individually, not even correct the spelling because it just takes too long!

So I'm trying to answer a bunch of them here.

Not all the comments are positive (well, some of you are positive that I'm totally out to lunch, but that's OK too.)

First, apologies to Donald Redelmeier, co-author of the research paper in the New England Journal of Medicine away back in 1997 which formed the scientific basis for the rant. He's with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, not the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, and thanks to Steve Shumak for pointing that out to me.

There ARE indeed world-class traffic researchers at "Skuke"; Dr. Redelmeier just doesn't happen to be one of them.

Some commenters say 'my' argument is weak.

But of course, it isn't 'my' argument; it's the argument of the scientific research. If you want to question the science, be my guest; I prefer to believe in it.

The research tells us WHAT happened; it doesn't always tell us WHY it happened. I suspect Dr. Redelmeier and his colleagues were surprised that hands-free didn't turn out to be safer than hand-held; it just didn't.

Likewise, they were probably surprised that the deterioration in driving ability didn't instantly improve when the study subject hung up.

That does however 'support the hypothesis' (that's how research people talk) that it is not an issue of manual dexterity, but of mental engagement. Just because you hang up the phone doesn't mean you stop thinking about the conversation.

Some commenters question how talking on the phone could be more of a distraction than talking to someone who is in the car - we obviously could never ban that. Again, the research doesn't necessarily tell us WHY that is the case, but it does suggest that it IS the case.

I have one snippet of a theory on that, and it stems from a belief my late brother had about his career as a radio announcer. Unlike a lot of radio personalities, Ross DID have a 'face for TV' (he was an extremely good-looking man) and he did in fact do some TV. But he always preferred radio to TV because it was a more involving medium, in that the listener could not SEE what he looked like, what colour shirt he was wearing, etc. - the listener had to make that up for himself, so there was more of a connection than with TV, which laid out everything for all to see.

If anybody really understands Marshall McLuhan, maybe this is related to what he was driving at too.

Getting back to cell phones versus in-car conversations, with the former you have to imagine what the person on the other end of the 'line' is wearing, what he/she looks like, what condition his/her office is in. Not consciously perhaps. But maybe this type of conversation simply engages more brain cells than talking to someone in the car.

Like I said, just a theory that may at least partially explain the results of the research.

My rant was indeed a blog, intended to generate conversation, and it certainly did that! It was not necessarily a manifesto about what should be done. I don't know whether banning hands-free devices too would accomplish much, but IF you think cell phone conversations are dangerous enough that they should be regulated, then only banning hand-held is unlikely to have much if any effect.

Some maintain that it is a step in the right direction. Well, not on the face if it, not based on this research.

But I will allow that IF it brings the issue to people's minds, that talking on a cell can be dangerous, maybe the ban just on hand-held will reduce cell chatting sufficiently that it will help.

A few people cheekily asked me to demonstrate how they could "text" other than hand-held. Well, I'd be the last guy to ask, because I have enough trouble typing with all (or most of my) ten fingers. With only my thumbs? Not gonna happen...

But I was under the impression that there is voice-to-text capability, that you can speak into your device and have it converted into a text message. As one of the comedians on the Sirius Satellite Radio comedy channels noted, if they could then convert the text back into voice at the other end, it would be... just... like... a ... phone...

The Hansard of the Common Man

Those pixelboard signs on our highways are one mechanism our government uses to get in touch with drivers. Most of the time the advice thereon is fatuous or obvious, or both. Sometimes, the warnings about slowdowns ahead are actually useful.

AP FILE PHOTO

The issue at stake, says Jim Kenzie, is: hand-held, hands-free -- it makes absolutely no difference, any cellphone communication is dangerous.

These days, one tidbit they are offering is that as of October 26, Ontario's ban on hand-held communications devices such as cell phones comes into effect.

However, we are also informed via other means that for the first three months, no tickets will be issued. Just warnings. Part of what the government calls an "education campaign".

What a great idea! This gives the government three more months to come to its senses.

The only education that needs doing is that the government has to educate itself to the reality of digital communications and traffic.

There's no doubt - you witness it every day - that talking and/or texting while driving is dumb and dangerous. The issue at stake here is: Hand-held, hands-free - it makes absolutely no difference.

All this stupid law does is give the cops more nuisance things to do, leaving them less time to do something useful.

There are constant complaints in our media about the brain drain, about how Canada cannot attract top-level researchers to our country.

But we HAVE some of the highest-level traffic researchers in the entire world right here at my Alma Mater, the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto, located less than two kilometres from Queen’s Park.

And what does the government do? It ignores them.

Because some of the research that proved that the oh-so-real deterioration in driving skill associated with these devices is due to the mental distraction of phoning or texting, not the reduction in physical dexterity caused by the manipulation of the devices, was done by U of T engineering faculty.

Banning hand-held devices is actually worse than useless, because it allows us (including the government and the police) to assume that we have in fact solved the problem.

The politicians pat themselves on the back and vote themselves another raise.

The cops write hundreds of tickets, easy pickings for their (official-or-not) quotas.

And because it is now "legal" to chat or text as long as you're doing it hands-free, we're probably in more danger now because such behaviour is now officially sanctioned.

This is beyond - WAY beyond - stupid.

Luckily, they do have these extra three months to figure this out. If you're going to ban in-car communications devices, DO IT. What do you think the chances are? Exactly.

If you aren't going to ban them, then deploy the cops to do something useful, like nailing left-lane bandits and red-light runners.

Can anyone explain to me why obvious stuff like this is so hard for these people to understand?

Wheels: Hand-held phone ban no big deal