On Point: Cell use views on hold

Published August 17, 2006 at midnight

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Maybe it's just that my daughter is driving. Maybe I'm suddenly more risk-averse. But whatever the reason, I found myself wanting to interview University of Utah professor David Strayer this week after reading about his research on how cell phone use affects motorists' minds.

"Chatting on a cell phone while driving cuts the brain's ability to operate a vehicle and process information about traffic by 50 percent," the news report had ominously said.

Is that true, professor?

Indeed it is, Strayer confirmed. It turns out he has participated in a variety of research on cell phones over the years, including studies measuring brain activity, and they all pretty much show the same thing: Phone chatter boosts a driver's chance of an accident by four or five times.

"These are whopping effects," he told me, equivalent to driving at .08 on the blood-alcohol scale, which is now the legal standard for being drunk.

"You're looking but not seeing" when you're on a cell phone, he said, compared to your normal state.

But why should talking on a cell phone be more dangerous than chatting with passengers? Strayer's research has that angle covered, too.

"The whole structure of the conversation changes (when the driver is talking to passengers)," Strayer said. Research shows that "a passenger will actually stop talking when the driving gets difficult." As will the driver, no doubt.

People on the other end of a cell phone can't possibly adjust their conversation to account for driving conditions. They're oblivious to slick streets, to a car that veers toward you, to the need to merge into heavy traffic.

So have I changed my previously dismissive attitude toward legislation banning all but the emergency use of cell phones in cars? Not yet, but I'm wavering - and I can see the writing on the wall if studies such as Strayer's keep reaching the same conclusions.

But driving injuries are down

If you're one of millions of Americans who regularly yaks on the phone while driving and are looking for an argument to counter the one you read above, here's what to do.

Don't resort to the don't-tread-on-me argument. That sort of rhetoric makes a lot of sense if we're talking about minor distractions such as eating while driving or playing CDs - but not for a distraction equivalent to being drunk.

No, here's your best bet: Cite accident statistics. If you go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Web site, you'll find a chart tracking the annual injury rate per 100 million miles traveled going back to 1988. The trend has been moving steadily toward fewer injuries - during the very era when cell phone ownership exploded.

If cell phones are so dangerous, their effect at least is being offset by other advances in safety. And if we're safer than ever on the road, why rush to condemn such a remarkable tool of convenience?

As I said, I'm wavering.

Lumbering higher ed

We should consider ourselves lucky when a federal commission studying something as grandiose as the "future of higher education" comes up with anything more probing than a platitude, but one just did. In fact, a commission of big shots from the business and academic establishments has summed up the collective state of colleges and universities in a few brisk words: "American higher education has become what, in the business world, would be called a mature enterprise: increasingly risk-averse, at times self-satisfied, and unduly expensive."

Like General Motors circa 1975, in other words.

"Compounding all of these difficulties," the commission continues, "is a lack of clear, reliable information about the cost and quality of post-secondary institutions, along with a remarkable absence of accountability mechanisms to ensure that colleges succeed in educating students."

In its final report issued last week, the commission expounds on these matters in depth, while calling for a variety of sensible measures to give parents and students a clearer idea of the quality and cost of school.

Unfortunately, the commission falters when groping for ways to spur higher ed and state officials into action, recommending that the federal government "provide incentives." Such a polite word, "incentives." But we don't need to guess where they'll lead: to attempts by the federal government to impose standards and exert greater regulatory control. Which is simply not the way to make schools more lean and nimble.

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several times a week. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

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