GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Posted Aug 27, 2012 16:59 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
In reply to: GENIVI: moving an industry to open source by dlang
Parent article: GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Without reading your links, some questions I would have are:

- How is the drop in usage measured? Self-reporting? If so, there might be bias there.
- Is age factored out? I would think teens are more likely to flaunt those laws and are at higher risk anyways.
- In-car navigation systems and the like seem to be rising in popularity as well. Maybe there is some cancellation there?

Really, a decrease in the percentage of the rates due to cell phones would be the interesting numbers.

to post comments

GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Posted Aug 27, 2012 22:12 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

These (and apparently other) studies were started to research the strange phenomenon that all these anti-cell phone laws have been passed on the justification that they would improve safety, but the accident and fatality rates have not changed as a result of the laws being passed.

so either

A) everyone is ignoring the law

B) cell phone use may not have been as much a factor as people thought.

In one of the links, they were reviewing the data from one of the early studies that showed that cell phone use was so horrible. They found that when the study was comparing "accident" days with "non-accident" days, they didn't account for the miles driven. If they changed the calculation to be by miles rather than by days, the rate of accidents with cell phone use was 1/5 the rate calculated in the original study, bringing it down to almost the accident rate for non-cell phone use.

In the other study, they did question people on their cell phone usage, and then had them drive the same route. They found that the people who reported high cell phone usage had many other driving habits that made them more likely to get into accidents (higher speeds +5mph, 2x more lane changes, etc), raising the question of if the cell phone use was the _cause_ of these people tending to have higher accident rates, or merely a _correlation_ with their other driving habits. This is just looking at the more extremes (use a phone frequently, and almost never use a phone), so it's hardly definitive either, but they are counterpoints to the "Cell phone usage is as bad as drunk driving" drumbeat that we ahve been hearing, so I thought I'd mention them.

GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Posted Aug 27, 2012 22:33 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

Accidents decrease in the areas with _strict_ no-phone law enforcement. Unfortunately, they're hardly ever enforced - people just ignore them.

GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Posted Aug 27, 2012 23:54 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

do you have something to show this?

Also, if they are cracking down on no-phone rules, are they cracking down on all other questionable driving habits as well? if so, is it possible that that part of the crackdown is the cause of any decrease in the accident rate?

GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Posted Aug 28, 2012 0:15 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, I have a link to a police report about it. Only I can't find it right now.

Of course, it can be a result of the general crackdown. However, phones are clearly a contributing factor in a significant number of sever accidents.

GENIVI: moving an industry to open source

Posted Aug 28, 2012 1:11 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

the question is over how much of a contribution the phone is (especially compared to other distractions) and if it's really a "significiant" number of accidents.

I don't think that anyone disputes that some people drive significantly worse while talking on the phone, or that this results in some accidents.

The dispute comes when you assume that banning phones will significantly reduce accidents.

So far it appears that this isn't the case.

P.S. A law against something bad that everyone ignores is worse than not having a law against that same something, it encourages people to think of the law as something that doesn't really mean much, and it leads to people looking at cases where laws are enforced with the slant of "why were they really out to get that person"

Talking while driving

Posted Aug 28, 2012 1:20 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

"All else being equal" is a tricky proposition even on the best days. There may be multiple arguments to explain why the accident rate has not gone down after forbidding "talking while driving", besides the two you mention:

Talking while driving did not account for a large percentage of accidents.
Talking while driving was forbidden when cellphones were not so popular, so the amount of talking while driving has kept more or less stable (including people who disregard the law).
Any other combination of outside factors has increased accident rates compensating for any talking while driving laws.
My favorite is that people now use hands-free cellphones, which are just as dangerous as hands-on cellphones -- ergo the lack of effect.

I suppose that all the new studies are taking these factors into account, but best methodology would be to check similar countries with different laws and see how they fare. I don't know if that is possible.

Personally I think that the cellphone laws is not a good idea; one must exercise extreme caution when talking while driving, but also when talking hands-free, smoking (those who do), changing the music, talking to your spouse, seeing an accident nearby, and any other condition that diminishes your attention to the road. Since those other things are not going to be forbidden it makes little sense to fixate on cellphones.

I think that the worst habit is filming a movie while driving; those actors that look to the passengers for minutes on end drive me crazy.