Texting was blamed for this August 2010 crash that killed two.
The National Transportation Safety Board wants to ban the use of all electronic devices while driving. That includes not only handheld phones and texting, but even the use of hands-free phones, Internet-connected devices and other high-tech systems.
The recommendation – which does not in itself carry the weight of law – comes days after another federal agency revealed that roughly one of every 11 Americans killed in traffic accidents in 2010 died due to distracted driving.
“It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman. “No call, no text, no update, is worth a human life.”
The safety agency, perhaps best known for its work reconstructing and dissecting airline and rail accidents, notably pointed to an August 2010 crash in Gray Summit, Missouri. A 19-year-old pickup truck driver received 11 text messages in the minutes before he plowed into a semi-trailer, triggering a chain reaction that included two school buses. Two died – including the texting teen and a student on one of the buses.
It’s not the first time the NTSB has taken on the issue of distraction caused by the use of electronic devices. The agency’s investigation ultimately showed that the engineer on a Southern California commuter train was busy on a cellphone when his train missed a signal and slammed into a freight train, in 2008, killing 25. A year later, the two pilots on a Northwest Airlines flight overshot their destination by 100 miles while using a laptop computer. Luckily, the only consequence was a flight delay.
From a more scientific basis, the NTSB cites a study of commercial drivers by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute which found that a “safety critical” event is 163 times more likely to occur if a driver is using a cellphone, texting or accessing the Internet.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Transportation have also been focusing on distracted driving. They released a report earlier this week showing that highway deaths continued to fall in 2010 and, on a death-per-100 million-miles-driven basis slipped to the lowest level ever. But even using a more restrictive definition, distracted driving was blamed for 3,092 of the 32,885 highway deaths last year.
Despite mounting evidence, the NTSB does not have the authority to put its recommendations into practice. But it plans to press Congress for a ban. It’s unclear whether that is even remotely possible in the current, highly charged political environment, especially with many lawmakers demanding a reduction in federal regulations.
Automakers, meanwhile, might express similar concerns about the use of handheld phones and texting but they have made major investments in new handsfree infotainment systems like Ford’s Sync and Toyota’s entune. They insist that voice controls make the use of such technologies acceptably safe.
According to a story in the The Washington Post, a report compiled by the Swedish government shows that hands-free cellphone systems do not increase safety compared to handheld cellphones.
While the debate is certain to continue, on a regional level, 35 states, have already banned texting while driving, with 35 states and Washington, D.C. barring the use of handheld phones. A number of other communities, such as the City of Detroit, have also barred drivers from using handheld phones.
Bryan Laviolette contributed to this report.