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A driver is shown using his cell
phone in Dallas.
Credit LM Otero/Associated Press
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Phones are
getting smarter, drivers seemingly less so.
A recent survey shows
that many motorists have expanded their behind-the-wheel activities beyond
texting to include using Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, taking selfies and
even shooting videos.
The survey was
commissioned by AT&T, itself a phone company, but one that has invested
heavily in discouraging distracted driving through its “It Can Wait” public
service campaign. The telephone survey was conducted by Braun Research, which
polled 2,067 people who own a smartphone and drive at least once a day.
The survey found
that 27 percent of drivers age 16 to 65 report using Facebook, and 14 percent
report using Twitter. Of those, a startling 30 percent who said they post to
Twitter while driving do it “all the time.”
“One in 10 say
they do video chat while driving. I don’t even have words for that,” said Lori
Lee, AT&T’s senior executive vice president for global marketing.
The survey found,
17 percent take selfies, perhaps a fitting metaphor for ignoring everyone else
on the road. The survey also found that texting remains the most prevalent
activity, reported by 61 percent of drivers, followed by 33 percent who email
and 28 percent who surf the Internet. More than 10 percent use Instagram and
Snapchat.
The survey is
obviously just one data point. But there is other evidence suggesting that
driver behavior is getting more foolish, even in the face of public service
efforts and legislation. Oklahoma this month enacted a bill banning texting and
driving, joining 45 other states and the District of Columbia with such laws.
Yet the AAA
Foundation for Traffic Safety, which conducts an annual survey about driver
behavior, found in its 2014 survey that 36.1 percent of drivers read a text or
email in the 30 days before the survey, and 27.1 percent typed one.
Those figures are
an increase over two years earlier, when the 2012 index found that 34.7 percent
read a text or email and 26.2 typed one.
Also, the National
Safety Council, a nonprofit organization, estimated Monday that crashes from
texting drivers rose to 6 percent of all crashes, up from an estimated 5
percent last year. (The figures are mere estimates; policing agencies haven’t
been collecting actual data long, and drivers may not admit that their texting
caused a crash, according to safety advocates).
Even if these are
modest increases in crashes and behavior, presumably within the margin of
error, they still show the challenges facing safety advocates and policy
makers. Curiously, more drivers are aware of the risks. In the 2014 AAA survey,
84.4 percent of those surveyed said it was “completely unacceptable” to text
and drive.
What might
explain the disconnect?
Over the years
covering this issue, I’ve heard a handful of explanations from scientists and
policy experts that get at potential reasons.
First, policy and
safety efforts to discourage distracted driving are flying in the face of
strong social pressure to stay connected. It’s also flying in the face of
market forces and new technology that encourage constant connectedness.
And our devices
can feel irresistible. In the new AT&T survey, 22 percent of the respondents
who access social media while driving said that they did so because they felt
addicted. A growing body of evidence suggests that heavy use of phones is, if
not actually addictive, at least extremely habit-forming.
Drivers also
overestimate their abilities to multitask while driving even as they criticize
others for doing it. In the AT&T survey, 27 percent of people who shoot a
video while driving said they thought they could do it safely. “You’re an
accident waiting to happen,” Ms. Lee said of multitasking motorists. The
company, which started the It Can Wait campaign in 2010, plans to expand its
message to discourage not only texting but other smartphone activities.
What’s to be done
to narrow the gap between attitudes and behaviors? Some lessons for curbing the
behavior can be drawn from the success in cutting sharply into drunk driving
and the effort to increase seat belt use. Both relied on the combination of
public education and enforcement of tough laws.
But given the
strong social and market forces present with technology that weren’t present on
those other issues, it is unclear if that pattern will repeat itself.
