Death By Distraction - Statistical Data Included

Automotive Industries,  May, 2000  by Gerry Kobe

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Pop an individual CD out of its grippy box-holder and slip it into the in-dash player, while sipping a tall latte, dialing the cell phone and trying to keep your hands on the wheel -- and your attention on the road.

--Lindsay Brooke

RELATED ARTICLE: What The Cops See

A ride with Michigan's finest reveals the impact of in-car distractions.

Michigan State Police Trooper ET. Troye wheels his patrol car around the median of I-696. "Hold on, close your eyes or do whatever you gotta do," he orders. "It's rush hour. This is going to be a rough ride but l promise I won't crash us."

Seconds later, the trooper's midnight blue Ford Crown Victoria is westbound, hitting 120 mph down the left shoulder of the grid-locked Detroit freeway. "There's a rollover accident," Troye shouts over the piercing whine of the siren and tires. "These are typical of the kinds of accidents we see when people are distracted on the freeway. They adjust their radio, look at their nav system screen or try to dial their cell phone and the next thing you know, they hang two wheels off the road into the dirt. Then they overcorrect, fishtail, the dirt trips the car and over it goes."

As we arrive on the scene of the accident, his words become an eerily accurate prophecy. A twisted red GMC Jimmy sits motionless on the shoulder. The passenger-side tires are folded beneath the grass- and mud-caked rims and the top is crushed directly over the driver.

"It's like you saw this accident before we even got here," I comment "I did," Troye laments. "Same thing happened yesterday."

Responding to accidents triggered by in-car distractions are part of the daily routine for the police. So, too, are the citations they write for careless driving or improper lane use caused by drivers taking their minds off the road. Troye says he has written more than one ticket to cell phone users who were driving without their hands on the wheel. He even recounts writing up a woman who was driving right through a construction zone.

"Thank God that happened on a weekend and workers were not out there," Troye says. "That lady was driving at speed on the wrong side of the construction barrels when I pulled her over. She was so busy talking on the phone that when I asked her if she knew she was driving through a construction zone, she told me that she thought it was the other lanes that were closed."

Even as Troye is telling the story, a slow moving Pontiac Grand Am ahead of us veers left and then changes lanes abruptly to the right. The car moves halfway onto the right shoulder of the freeway, darts back into the lane and then speeds up to about 70 mph. Through the back window, an antenna appears to be "growing" from the driver's right ear. Troye jokes that either this guy is a Martian or he is chatting on the phone. In ether case, he says he'd like to talk with him.

After a quick stop and verbal warning, Troye is satisfied that the driver at least admits his mind was on his telephone conversation and not on his driving. He says that a "helpful reminder" will probably do more than a citation, but adds that people talking on cell phones make legitimate targets for police because of how they are driving.