Unintended Consequences: NY Times on History of Cellular Driving Safety IssueYesterday's NY Times has an article on "who knew what when" on the issue of cellular/texting use while driving. It starts with this anecdote:
"Martin Cooper, who developed the first portable cellphone, recalled testifying before a Michigan state commission about the risks of talking on a phone while driving.
Common sense, said Mr. Cooper, a Motorola engineer, dictated that drivers keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.
Commission members asked Mr. Cooper what could be done about risks posed by these early mobile phones.
'There should be a lock on the dial,” he said he had testified, “so that you couldn’t dial while driving.'
It was the early 1960s"
The article also quotes Bob Lucky, one of Bell Labs' superstars and founding chairman of the FCC's Technological Advisory Council (TAC):
Other early innovators of cellphones said they felt nagging concerns. Bob Lucky, an executive director at Bell Labs from 1982-92, said he knew that drivers talking on cellphones were not focused fully on the road. But he did not think much about it or discuss it and supposed others did not, either, given the industry’s booming fortunes.
“If you’re an engineer, you don’t want to outlaw the great technology you’ve been working on,” said Mr. Lucky, now 73. “If you’re a marketing person, you don’t want to outlaw the thing you’ve been trying to sell. If you’re a C.E.O., you don’t want to outlaw the thing that’s been making a lot of money.
What seems to be lost here is that early cell phones were bulky systems that were only used in cars and lunchbox sized units. Thus the inevitable marketing focus was on car use. Only with new semiconductor technology, a spinoff of DoD research, did handheld and pocket cell phones become a reality.
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UPDATE
The NY Times seems to have problems with the cell phone industry. On December 12, they followed up on the above article with an editorial entitled "Turn Car On; Turn Phone Off":
Like drivers chattering on their mobile phones, the cellphone industry was for years too distracted — by rising profits — to see the dangers ahead. As Matt Richtel wrote in The Times last week, the mobile phone industry promoted the glamour and convenience of “car phones” for years while failing to heed warnings that driving and phoning can be a deadly mix.
One ad from 1984 shows a bigwig driver on the phone and tellingly asks, “Can your secretary take dictation at 55 m.p.h.?”
A great measure of responsibility for safety lies with drivers. But now, as study after study shows the hazards of talking on the phone, or especially texting, while driving, it is time to ask why the wireless phone industry fought controls for so long on a product that could be used so dangerously.
It brings to mind that row of tobacco company executives who swore to a Congressional subcommittee 15 years ago that their products were not addictive. Or the car companies that went on making hefty S.U.V.’s that had a record of rolling over.
The reasons the cellphone industry representatives have given to block bans on phone use while driving sound straight out of the “Thank You for Smoking” playbook. One refrain was that the evidence was not settled, an assertion that continued as the industry itself was beginning to warn drivers about driving while phoning.
In California, the mobile industry fought off bans on talking while driving for years, at one point arguing that they were looking out for consumers. Consumers want to use their cellphones, that is true, but most who drive would also prefer to make it to their destinations. And distracted drivers put everyone else on the road at risk.
Even though the police are too seldom required to determine whether cellphone use was involved in an accident, the data about texting or phoning while driving is alarming. Harvard researchers estimated that drivers on cellphones cause about 2,600 fatal crashes a year and 570,000 accidents. Hands-free devices do not eliminate that risk. Other studies show that someone legally drunk could outperform a person texting behind the wheel.
Congress has slowly begun to focus on this issue and proposals for bans are now circulating in both houses, some with support of the cellphone industry. None of them are terribly high on Washington’s agenda, however. It is time for Congress and the wireless phone industry to take highway safety a step beyond seat belts and air bags.
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