Texting While Driving Turns Sneaky

I've been thinking a lot about prohibitions since my fellow Washingtonians voted to legalize marijuana. Effective today State law allows anyone 21 or over to have up to an ounce on them...but they can't smoke in public.

While smoking pot may have its own implications on driving safety, it's not what keeps running through my mind right now. Decades ago, making cannabis illegal led to an incredible black market for it. Just like it did with alcohol during Prohibition. Back then, it was how fortunes were made. Al Capone and his mob ruled. And in more modern times, the war on drugs has made for some powerful cartels and corruption in governments around the world.

As well meaning as it may be, prohibition doesn't seem to work very well. Prohibition of alcohol. Prohibition of cannabis. Prohibition of just about anything . . . I'm pretty sure it's because people are rebellious by nature and if you tell them what to do then they may just do the opposite. But they don't stop there, they also give demand for a black market trade to develop. There are a couple parts to human nature that transcend political, cultural, religious and ethnic boundaries. First, people are rebellious. And second, they're notorious for their creativity in finding ways to get around laws.

So what about the prohibition of holding a cell phone to your ear or texting while driving? Have the number of fatalities on our roads decreased since we made our anti-cell phone laws? Do the laws actually save lives? It'd be great if the answer was yes. But it's not. It's "we don't know."

In 2010 the way distracted driving statistics were collected changed so that cell phone use as a distraction factor is now counted by itself  instead of being grouped with the others. The 2011 numbers haven't been released to the public yet so we can't even do a two year comparison. NHSTA calculates that in 2010 there were 3,092 crash deaths due to texting and cell phone use while driving. That's a lot. But it's not the 10,228 that alcohol had.

I see drivers on cell phones every day. It still amazes me because they don't make any effort to hide what they are doing. When I'm at stop lights or on the freeway I frequently see drivers texting. These drivers are a lot sneakier than the phone users. Texters used to have their phones up high on the steering wheel ... so even though what they were doing was risky, at least they had some peripheral vision or general idea about traffic conditions.

Now that it's illegal, hand-held devices have been lowered below the window line.Yikes! Reading a message in your lap cuts out any peripheral vision a driver would have had if the phone were higher. It's like driving blind.

So what's the solution? The fact is that most drivers are able to manage their daily distractions without being involved in a collision. They don't crash every day. Or every year for that matter.

Should law enforcement focus on dangerous driving maneuvers that were actually committed (like drifting out of their lane, speeding, tailgating, etc.) or continue to micro-manage distractions that may or may not result in a collision? Is the ban on cell phones enough? Should we also ban eating, looking at a map or GPS or adjusting the audio system? How about talking to passengers or driving children around?

What if anti-cell phone laws were put in place like drunk driving laws? So a person had to be over 21 (or have a driver's license for at least 5 years) to use their phone or engage in other distractions.

Maybe we should make our driving test more difficult. As is, it takes less than 15 minutes and tests our ability to not crash. Why not test a driver's ability to drive well? And throw in a distracted driving element, too. Why not be true to real life and test how well someone drives with a baby crying in the back seat, adjusting the radio at least once and changing the air flow from the dash to the floor? And the examiner should come equipped with questions for the test taker to answer just to prove that they can talk and drive safely at the same time. The test should definitely include the freeway and busy city driving. And looking for an address in an unknown city. Not all of these suggestions are practical, but oooh imaging the possibilities is so fun!

What do you think? Does the cell phone ban work? Is there a better way than our current system to approach traffic safety? What will it take to get traffic fatalities down to zero?