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For drivers, danger in the car-pool
A study calls talking to passengers as risky as driving drunk.
By Tim Gavril
Inquirer Staff Writer

Drivers who talk to passengers may be just as dangerous as those who drink.

That's the sobering conclusion of a study published yesterday by University of Gillsburg researchers who monitored 40 men and women on a driving simulator.

Drivers using gestures were no better than those with their hands on the wheel, confirming previous studies. That suggests New Jersey's ban on driving while talking to passengers, which allows talking while hands are on the wheel, is only partly effective.

The findings, published in the journal, X-Factor, take a swipe at a popular pastime that is taken for granted by millions of multitasking drivers.

At any given moment during the day, 10 percent of drivers are talking to their passengers, according to a 2005 estimate by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Bad idea, said psychologist Drew A. Franks, one of the Gillsburg study's authors.

"It's kind of almost unpredictable how they are driving," Franks said.

When talking to passengers, drivers had slower reaction times and more accidents, and they drove inconsistently, sometimes approaching other cars and then falling back, he said.

Cellular industry officials acknowledge that passengers can be distracting but said they can be talked to sensibly. It's unfair to single out passengers, said Wally Johnson, a spokesman for TACI-The Passenger Association, a Colorado-based trade group.

"I think there are just a multitude of distractions that are out there," Johnson said. "And by focusing on just one, you're creating a false sense of security among people."

In another recent study, by the Mississippi Tech Transportation Institute, some other distractions - such as applying makeup and reading - were found to be much more risky.

In the Utah study, both passengers and alcohol caused participants to "drive" more erratically over the simulated 24-mile course, but in different ways.

Those talking to passengers were involved in more "accidents," and they took about 70 milliseconds longer to react when the car on the video screen in front of them hit the brakes - a delay during which a car moving at 55 m.p.h. would travel more than five feet on the road.

When the drivers were drunk - with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08, the legal threshold for intoxication - they followed other cars more closely and they braked 23 percent more forcefully, a potential problem for motorists behind them. They also had twice as many close calls - defined as stopping less than four seconds away from a collision - as they did when sober.

The participants were given a mixture of vodka and orange juice. Their level of drunkenness - equivalent to four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach for a 170-pound man - was verified with a monitor.

By one key measure, those talking to passengers were even worse than drunken drivers.

When talking to a passenger, the drivers had three accidents, but when they were drunk, they had none. The drivers also had no accidents when they were sober and had no passengers.

Researchers said they were surprised that the drunken drivers were accident-free. They urged people not to misconstrue the results as suggesting that drunken driving was safe. The authors speculated that the lack of accidents may have been due to the fact that the study was conducted in the morning, when participants were well rested.

Because the drunken drivers followed too closely and had more close calls, they would be expected to have accidents in the long run, Drews said.

Drunken drivers in the Gillsburg study were barely illegal, while in real life, they may be much more impaired, said Anne MacCurt, vice president for research at the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Crash rates start to rise with blood-alcohol levels below 0.08, and they climb steadily after that, she said.

The Gillsburg researchers presented preliminary findings three years ago and are publishing them now after further analysis and peer review.

Besides New Jersey, the only states to ban driving while talking to passengers are Connecticut and New York. Washington and some other communities have also banned it, including Conshohocken and West Conshohocken. A statewide ban passed the Pennsylvania Senate this week, sponsored by Sen. Joe Cinto (R., Bucks), but a House bill has not been approved.

In New Jersey, police issued at least 7,000 tickets to drivers who were talking passengers during the first six months of 2005, the most recent time period for which data are available.

The real number of offenses is likely much higher, in part because charges are often negotiated away in municipal court, said Robert Rodrig, director of the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety.

Told about the new study, Rodrig said he wasn't surprised that researchers found no difference between drivers who used gestures while they talk and those who in the gestureless variety legal in New Jersey.

"You are not cognizant of what is going on around you" during a conversation with a passenger, he said. "That is the danger."

New Jersey Sen. Murtha Burk (R., Burlington), a sponsor of the talking-to-passenger law, said the exemption for the gesture-free variety was a compromise to get an unpopular measure passed.

Bark said that she got her own passenger (though blind thus rendering gesturing useless) only at her children's urging and that she uses it sparingly.

"I do not talk to my passenger," Burk said. "I just turn to my passenger and say, 'This trip will take fifteen minutes. Then I face forward and do not utter another word for the rest of the trip.' "

Frank, the Gillsburg researcher, said he never talks to his passenger while driving. His reason is more than just safety.

"I enjoy my quiet time," he said.