But via the NSC:

“Using cell phones while driving is a very high risk behavior with significant impact on crashes and society. More than 50 peer-reviewed scientific studies have identified the risks associated with cell phone use while driving.

Drivers who use cell phones are four times more likely to be in a crash while using a cell phone. (1997 New England Journal of Medicine examination of hospital records and 2005 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study linking crashes to cell phone records).

There is no difference in the cognitive distraction between hand-held and hands-free devices. (Simulator studies at the U. of Utah.)

Cell phone use contributes to an estimated 6 percent of all crashes, which equates to 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths each year. (Harvard Center of Risk Analysis).

80 percent of crashes are related to driver inattention. There are certain activities that may be more dangerous than talking on a cell phone. However, cell phone use occurs more frequently and for longer durations than other, riskier behaviors. Thus, the #1 source of driver inattention is cell phones. (Virginia Tech 100-car study for NHTSA)”

It’s that last one, the most ambitious and realistic study to date, with its six terrabytes of data to still be crunched, with a new larger study forthcoming, that’s most telling. Yes, fiddling with the radio is not good — I once crashed that way, and controls have been moved to the wheel for that reason — but it is a very quick activity, where cell-phone conversation, while indeed less risky at any one moment comparatively, tends to go on much longer, going in and out of situations of varying driver demand, so the risk accrues.

(Amused). I don’t even own a phone.

[drunk driving]

I’m not sure I accept your thesis re: drunk driving. Wikipedia — admittedly not a stellar source — says, to little surprise to me, that drunk driving laws have been on the books for almost as long as their have been cars. The people who have to clean up the messes have probably known about drunks for the same period too.

That “science” may not have been aware of this is neither here nor there: the statistics (the “bodies”) are probably available.

I’ll research this a bit later.

As for nose-picking or playing the radio, there is a clear consensus among human factors researchers, verified in any number of studies, that those are not on par with a phone conversation while driving in terms of cognitive workload.

http://www.aaafoundation.org/pdf/distraction.pdf

~11% (of 9% of crashes) are due to fiddling with the car radio and 1.5% for the cellphone. Note that this is not a theoretical model, but actual, hard, observation (albeit, subject to biases — and a fair amount of noise). This is a 2001 study, and maybe the AAA Foundation is a mouthpiece for the cellphone industry, but I’ve found more recent results that come to similar conclusions.

And, out of order:

Crash-causation and fatality risks in an environment as complex and misunderstood as traffic do not simply present themselves as a “pile of bodies” [...]

As far as I am concerned, that’s all we need to care about. If alcohol impaired a driver, but said impaired drivers, by some miracle, never caused any problem at all, why should we care? I think the debate would be furthered greatly by cleanly separating risk from reality.

Crash-causation and fatality risks in an environment as complex and misunderstood as traffic do not simply present themselves as a “pile of bodies” — not to mention that statistically, there are more deaths attributed to cell phone related distraction and driving than any number of things that warrant public and governmental attention — peanut salmonella outbreak, anyone?

Additionally, there’s many other things to consider — alcohol is in the blood, cell phone usage is more difficult to measure.

As for nose-picking or playing the radio, there is a clear consensus among human factors researchers, verified in any number of studies, that those are not on par with a phone conversation while driving in terms of cognitive workload.

I’d rather not actually have to have a law, but I’m not sure if the social norm will emerge if people are simply made aware of the risks. One simple reason I would like a law is that if I am ever struck and killed by someone talking on his phone and driving — acting negligently — that person will go to jail and my survivors can bleed them in court — rather than them skipping on an “accident.”

Every modern legal jurisdiction already has, today, laws against “careless driving” or similar.

Rather than getting all excited — if only because it distracts your driving — I suggest enforcement of existing law.

And like Oregon Live, I suggest the enforcement follow common sense. Deploying enforcement resources to pick off cell-phone users in (say) the middle of Nebraska is simply silly. Even the idea of going specifically after cell-phoners is probably bad: the 15 minutes it takes to write the ticket and so forth could be better spent hunting for people who do far more damage (drunks).

Honestly, there are far bigger problems to worry about.

They almost certainly do. However, the dirty little fact still remains: a huge number of fatalities are directly attributed to drunk driving, and while the same can not be said for cell-phone driving.

The real question is not why there hasn’t been an increase but why we haven’t seen a great decline in this country (the recent small decline one was mostly due to economic factors) of traffic fatalities?

I’m not sure, but if your argument is that the “great decline” is not visible because the cell-phone drivers are filling in the hole, well, then present the evidence: simply point to the pile of cell-phoned-to-death bodies.

I’ll also add that every time you raise this matter here, I end up googling around looking for evidence that, finally, someone has unearthed. What usually happens is that I find more support for the notion that futzing with the car-radio, or picking your nose, or any number of other ways you can distract yourself behind the wheel are larger, more demonstrable, threats than blabbing on a phone.

How much support do you think there will be for a ban on in-car radios? Suppose that talking a cell-phone made you drive faster, not slower? Would anyone care to the point of enacting special legislation?

Hang up and drive.

Has a nice “ring” to it and everything…