London incidents

Tue Jul 12 21:47:59 UTC 2005

Mark Foster wrote:

> "Using phone company records, researchers assessed phone use immediately
> before the crash.

There are 3 kinds of lies:

	lies
	damn lies
	statistics

> They found a third of calls in the 10 minutes before the crash were made on
> cellphones. This was associated with a four-fold increased likelihood of
> crashing, and the risk was irrespective of age, sex or whether the phone was
> hands-free.
> Researchers said more new vehicles were being equipped with hands-free
> technology. Although this could lead to fewer hand-held phones in cars, the
> study showed it might not eliminate the risk."

Coincidence != cause and effect.

Despite all these studies saying that cell phone use "causes accidents", 
the overall accident rate is NOT going up.  Therefore, the cell phone 
using drivers who get in accidents are drivers who would have been in an 
accident *anyway*.  They are inattentive drivers.  Take away their cell 
phones and they will get in accidents while driving and eating, or 
driving and tuning the radio, or driving and arguing with a passenger.

Take the above "four-fold increase".  Suppose you go BACK a step and 
find out why they were making a phone call within the 10 minutes before 
a crash.  Odds are that the reason they made the phone call is highly 
related to the reason they got in a crash - they were running late - 
their boss called and yelled at them (employee) - they called home and 
were chewed out for not being home yet (teenager) - just had an argument 
with spouse, etc.  So after engaging in a call of this nature (while 
driving or while NOT driving), they are more likely to get in an 
accident due to being upset and/or in a hurry.  The *cell* phone use was 
totally incidental, rather than cause/effect.

jc