Cell Phones in Cars - The Danger and the Denial

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

By John Diaz.

As I was strolling through the Alameda County Fair with a friend and our teen daughters, we paused to view a scrunched-up vehicle at the Mothers Against Drunk Driving display. On the side of the exhibit was a photograph of a 22-year-old water skier, juxtaposed against a photo of an accident scene with a demolished Jeep.

"That," came a hushed voice in the background, "is my son."

My fellow fairgoers were several steps ahead, but I felt compelled to listen. The man explained that he was driving the Jeep when it was rammed by a vehicle driven by someone who was legally intoxicated. His son, a third-year midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, was killed. The father handed me a flier about Assembly Bill 91, which would require ignition interlocks on the vehicles of convicted drunk drivers. He expressed frustration that AB91 had bogged down in the state Senate.

I wasn't taking notes, and I did not get the father's name. I wasn't thinking of writing about his story, heartbreaking as it was, because it was so wrenchingly familiar. By now, all of us recognize the lethal dangers of drunken driving. Our society is long past the debate of whether it is safe or socially acceptable to drink and drive. The only controversy is over the strictness of the blood-alcohol limits and the severity of the punishments.

The law keeps getting tighter and tighter, and the highways keep getting safer as a result.

My conversation at the county fair came to mind last week as I read the revelations about how the National Highway Transportation Administration had suppressed research that suggested drivers who were talking on a cell phone were four times as likely to crash as other drivers - a danger equivalent to getting behind the wheel with a blood-alcohol level of .08.

The researchers said the available evidence suggested that a hands-free device did littleto reduce the hazard. The real issue is the distraction. They attributed 955 fatalities to driver cell-phone use in 2002.

As eye-popping as those findings were, I had a hunch they would be greeted with a giant shrug in our car culture. I knew that any attempt to prohibit the use of cell phones in automobiles was about as likely as our elected officials abolishing the Christmas holiday.

It took six years for state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, to muster the votes for the 2008 law that requires drivers to use hands-free devices for cell-phone calls.

"And that was notwithstanding the fact that we had a mountain of evidence from the CHP that cell phones were the No. 1 cause of accidents from distracted driving, year after year: More than kids, pets, eating, smoking and personal hygiene combined," Simitian said by land-line last week.

With the notable exception of Verizon Wireless - which supported Simitian's bill - the carriers put up fierce opposition to the hands-free requirement, even though many of the phones they sold came with explicit warnings that driving while holding a phone was unsafe.

"It was a very hard sell right up until the end," Simitian said. "Do I expect to see an outright ban (on calling while driving) in my lifetime?

"I do not."

I managed to track down the father from the MADD display. He is Tom Klotzbach of Livermore. His wife, Mary, works at the John Muir Trauma Center in Walnut Creek. They were both injured in the accident on July 29, 2001, that killed their son, Matthew, a history major and aspiring pilot at the Naval Academy.

Mary Klotzbach is now a MADD volunteer who has been active in the lobbying effort for AB91, which has advanced in the Senate, albeit in a watered-down form. It would establish a pilot program that would require offenders in four counties - Los Angeles, Alameda, Sacramento, Tulare - to have a breathalyzer device attached to their ignition after their first conviction for driving under the influence.

Mary Klotzbach said "I do worry" about the cell-phone factor, as does MADD. In fact, she said, its national leaders insist that participants should not drive while on the organization's conference calls.

"It doesn't matter, if your child is killed, if it's the result of a cell-phone call or a drunken driver," she said. "Your child is dead."

I recognize that a prohibition on cell-phone calls is not going to happen anytime soon. I use a cell phone while driving, and would not want to have to break the law when I receive a call from home or work.

Yet if this is a danger we are willing to accept - in the name of freedom, practicality or the ability to order a carry-out pizza on the way home - we should at least be realistic about the risk. It is very real.

Think about this: The federal researchers based their estimate of 955 fatalities on the assumption that 6 percent of drivers were talking on the phone at any given moment. That number seems ridiculously low, even for 2002.

It would take a quantum change in societal attitudes to dare deprive American drivers of their cell-phone entitlement, not with our certitude about our ability to multitask at the wheel.

It's almost unthinkable until you remember: There probably was a time when you would not think of trying to take the keys from a friend or relative who had a drink too many.

John Diaz is The Chronicle's editorial page editor. You can e-mail him at jdiaz@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/25/IN3V18TBF9.DTL#ixzz0MPsnzjQ8