Risks of Driving Automobiles While Using Cellular Phones - Essay Example

?Risks of driving automobiles while using cellular phones Cell phones have flooded the world since the start of 21st century. They have played the most important role in promoting communication and eradicating gaps in communication among all devices developed at different points in time in the history. With increased need to develop social network, people have started to rely on cell phones to dangerous levels. Its frequent and reckless use has exposed people to many risks. One such risk is of accidents when people attend calls while they are driving. “The prospect of twenty million drivers having the opportunity to place, receive, or handle a telephone call while driving is not something easily ignored” (McKnight and McKnight, 2011). Use of cell phone while driving is no less dangerous than drunk driving, and thus, should be condemned equally. People tend to deny that using cell phones while driving is dangerous and see it as a debatable topic. Cell phone use while driving is dangerous and the biggest evidence of this is the acknowledgement of dangers associated with this practice by the people who indulge in it. According to Gallup and Gallup (2003, p. 432), two-thirds of people that make use of cell phone as they drive disregard the idea that this practice is safe. There has been considerable law-making against eating while driving and sitting a child on the lap of the driver while he/she drives. Cell phone use while driving is much more dangerous than any of these cases because this practice distracts the driver mentally and makes him/her mentally absent while he/she is physically on the driving seat. The risk of using cell phone while driving increases considerably with age. As people age, they decline in their agility of reflexes and are not able to make best use of their capabilities. Ranney and Pulling (1990) have noted declines in the processing of information with increase of age. Arenberg (1982) determined increased difficulty in problem solving with increased age while Temple (1989) found that increase in age causes short term memory. All of these factors make the driving increasingly riskier. Findings of these researchers suggest that old people are more susceptible to accidents when they use cell phones while driving as compared to the young people. A lot of research has been conducted in the past to suggest that use of cell phone while driving is dangerous. Use of cell phones instantly slows down the reaction time of drivers and hence, makes them more susceptible to be caught in accidents. Young people hearing calls along with driving are no better than sleepy septuagenarians. David Strayer, the Professor of Psychology in the University of Utah conducted a comprehensive research to analyze the effects of cell phone use on the capability of drivers. The team of researchers determined in 2001 that even the hands-free calls play an important role in distracting the drivers. A reason for this was found in 2003 as a result of the continued research. They found that although the cell phone using drivers look, yet they are not able to see because their mind is focusing on the conversation. If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone … It’s like instantly aging a large number of drivers … Once drivers on cell phones hit the brakes, it takes them longer to get back into the normal flow of traffic … The net result is they are impeding the overall flow of traffic. (Strayer cited in Britt, 2005). Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign second the results derived by Strayer and his team. Arthur Kramer, the research leader said that the cell phone using drivers of any age are not able to pick out significant changes in the surroundings, and their reaction time is also longer accordingly (Britt, 2005). Number of deaths in US per year that can be attributed to the use of cell phones while driving is 26000 while 330000 injuries happen because of accidents that occur for the same reason. According to the results of another study discussed in Britt (2005), the reaction to brake lights in the cell phone users is 18 per cent slower as compared to other drivers. Their speed of regaining the lost speed is also 17 per cent lesser than other drivers. “[D]rivers using a cell phone took 19% longer (than baseline) to recover the speed that was lost following a braking episode” (Strayer, Drews, and Crouch, 2006, p. 389). McKnight and McKnight (2011) conducted a study in which based on the observation of 151 subjects of a video driving sequencing spanning 25 minutes that included 47 scenarios in which drivers would principally manipulate the vehicle’s control to respond. There were five distraction conditions under which each of the 47 conditions occurred equally often. These conditions were “placing a cellular phone call, carrying on a simple cellular phone conversation, carrying on a complex cellular phone conversation, tuning a radio, and no distraction (i.e., none of the preceding)” (Knight and Knight, 2011). In order to provide them with a familiar benchmark, the researchers made use of the radio tuning task and measured the level of distraction by comparing the responses occurring in the presence and absence of each distraction. Response was calculated according to its presence and the time taken by the respondents to make it. After a comprehensive research, the researchers drew the following conclusions: 1. Use of cellular phone makes the drivers non-responsive in all kinds of situations occurring in the highway-traffic irrespective of the form of usage i.e. calling, listening or texting 2. Significant conditions of highway traffic are most likely to be overlooked when the conversation is intense and complex. The effect of distracting resembles the process of tuning of radio. Call whether taken or made retards responses, though causal conversation is less risky than intense conversation 3. The distraction increases along with the age of driver. Drivers aged 50 or more are two to three times as likely to be distracted when using cell phone while driving as young drivers are. Non-responsiveness increases in effect between 33 and 38 per cent. 4. The distracting effect of the use of cell phone is not related to the driver’s previous experience with them. Owing to the potential dangers of using cell phone while driving, a total of 39 countries that make up to 17 per cent of the total countries banned the use of cell phones while driving in 2004 (Depken, 2006, p. 254). A vast majority of them were European countries while many countries in Middle East and Asia were also included in this list. According to Depken (2006, p. 254), there are two fundamental ways to reduce the use of cell phone while driving. One way is to make the use of cell phone in inadequate conditions very expensive with the help of social suasion. If the stigma of attending a call or texting in the driving seat of a moving car is sufficiently high, people would tend to switch off their cell phones before pouring in the driving seat instead of paying for such scrutiny. However, because of the fact that the trend to use social stigma has retreated in US in the last couple of decades, people attending call or texting while driving may not be discouraged by the distasteful stares of other people. The second way is to create laws which impose severe penalties on the people that use cell phones while driving. Penalties can come as monetary fines. Nevertheless, one can not say with extreme confidence that this alternative would prove effective in stopping people from using cell phones while driving because the opportunity and monetary expenses of enforcement of such laws are significant. [W]hen people have tried to do cost-benefit analyses to decide whether we should regulate cell phones, they often don't factor in the cost to society associated with increased commute times, excess fuel used by stop-and-go traffic and increased air pollution, as well as hazards associated with drivers distracted by cell phone conversations. (Strayer cited in University of Utah, 2008). Use of cell phone while driving is a very risky activity and must be condemned at all levels so that the number of accidents can be reduced. Although this practice exposes people of all ages to severe risks, yet the risk is more for old people with limited response-making ability as compared to the younger drivers. Drivers making or attending call or making or reading text messages while driving are not able to detect changes in the surroundings the way they should, and their response time is increased. Accidents can happen in fraction of a second. Thus, people can not afford to be late in their response. Owing to the dangers associated with the use of cell phone while driving, it should be banned like many European, Asian and Middle Eastern countries that have banned the practice. References: Arenburg, D. (1982). Estimates of age changes on the Benton visual retention test. Journal of Gerontology. 37: 87-90. Britt, R. R. (2005). Drivers on Cell Phones Kill Thousands, Snarl Traffic. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/121-drivers-cell-phones-kill-thousands-snarl-traffic.html. Depken, C. A. (2006). Microeconomics demystified. USA: The McGraw-Hill Companies. Gallup, G. H., and Gallup, G. (2003). The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 2003. Rowman & Littlefield. McKnight, J., and McKnight, A. S. (2011). The Effect of Cellular Phone Use upon Driver Attention. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Retrieved from http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=cellphone. Ranney, T. A., and Pulling, N. H. (1989). Relation of individual differences in information- processing ability to driving performance. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society - 33rd Annual Meeting, Human Factors Society, pp. 965-969. Strayer, D. L., Drews, F. A., and Crouch, D. J. (2006). A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver. Human Factors. 48(2): 381-391. Temple, L. L. (1989). Perceptual and cognitive factors affecting driving ability of young and older drivers. Las Vegas: University of Nevada. University of Utah. (2008, Jan. 6). Drivers on Cell Phones Clog Traffic. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080102083801.htm. Read More