WSJ -- Hands-Free Cellphones May Be No Safer Than Hand-Held.
July 19, 2004
Warning Call
As Industry Pushes Headsets In Cars, U.S. Agency Sees Danger
Hands-Free Cellphones May Be No Safer Than Hand-Held, Body of Research Says
Distracted Behind the Wheel
By JESSE DRUCKER and KAREN LUNDEGAARD
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Earlier this month, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., joined New York in requiring drivers to use headsets or other so-called hands-free devices when they talk on cellphones.
After initially fighting such laws, the nation's cellphone carriers are joining with car makers to promote the voluntary use of headsets to address concerns about the safety of talking on the phone while driving. States and towns across the country are considering ways to legislate the practice.
But new research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and others suggests that hands-free devices may actually add to the overall risk. The growing evidence could put safety regulators -- who have been reticent to act so far -- on a collision course with the nation's wireless business. American drivers spend roughly a billion minutes a day talking on their cellphones, an estimated 40% of all cellular minutes.
"The thing that disturbs me is that we have states and local municipalities making rules that basically give hands-free phones a free pass as being safe," says Jeffrey Runge, NHTSA's administrator. "That's not good policy."
A sizable body of research concludes that headsets and speaker-phones don't improve safety because it's the mental distraction of talking on the phone, not holding it, that causes the danger while driving. And recent research suggests the devices could actually increase risk by encouraging people to spend more time on their cellphones and drive faster while doing so.
What's more, according to a new study by NHTSA that has been reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, people spent more time on the distracting task of dialing when they use headsets and voice-activated dialing systems. The new voice-activated dialing method took nearly twice as long as punching the buttons on the phone the old-fashioned way, according to the study.
Reflecting such concerns, NHTSA officials last year drafted a letter to be sent to all 50 U.S. governors. It said laws prohibiting hand-held cellphones while giving the green light to using headsets "will not address the problem" and "may erroneously imply that hands-free phones are safe to use while driving." It recommended that drivers not use cellphones at all, except in an emergency.
The letter was to be signed by Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, Dr. Runge says. But it was never sent. Dr. Runge says he didn't forward the letter to the secretary's office because he felt the case had to be "airtight" first and thought NHTSA had bigger priorities such as combating drunk driving and promoting seat belts.
If not airtight, the evidence so far is strongly suggestive. In 2001, a Norwegian study of about 9,000 drivers found that hands-free users made more calls than callers who held their phones to their ears, potentially putting drivers more at risk. Meanwhile, the Swedish National Road Administration installed cameras in 40 cars and found that drivers wearing headsets drove faster than drivers holding their phones. Braking time slowed by as much 45% for cellphone users, with no improvement for those wearing headsets.
The safety research is little-known among nonspecialists. Even the federal government's General Services Administration issued guidelines in early 2002 calling on agencies to provide federal employees hands-free equipment while driving. It didn't consult NHTSA, the federal agency in charge of vehicle safety, says Dr. Runge, a medical doctor who used to work in emergency rooms.
One reason for the lack of awareness, Dr. Runge acknowledges, is that the traffic-safety agency has hardly been shouting its concern from the rooftops. When he heard about the General Services Administration's guidelines, he says "it made me realize that perhaps we had been hiding this information."
If, as Dr. Runge believes, it's dangerous to drive with a hands-free cellphone, the danger is likely to grow because companies have stepped up promotions of the devices. General Motors Corp. and Verizon Wireless are teaming up to sell OnStar, a communications system that features hands-free phone service at the press of a button. The service is now available on nearly 90% of GM's new models, including every Cadillac. "With the advent of hands-free legislation in many states, the value of this proposition becomes even greater," says John Stratton, chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless.
Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, is the country's only national cellular carrier that actually supports so-called hands-free laws. The laws do not require truly hands-free use of cellphones: They allow drivers to use their hands for dialing but not to hold the phone while talking. Verizon Wireless's backing was key to the passage of a 2001 law in New York state. Other wireless companies such as AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. dropped their opposition to the similar law in New Jersey and encourage drivers to use headsets voluntarily.
Some auto makers, including DaimlerChrysler AG and Ford Motor Co., are installing wireless connections so that drivers can talk into a microphone on the rearview mirror or sun visor and have the signal relayed to their cellphone in the car.
"People are starting to think about it as they're purchasing cars," says Fred Crum, a sales manager at a Chrysler dealer near Washington, where a hands-free law took effect July 1. Headset maker Plantronics Inc., whose sales of the devices have gone up more than sixfold in four years, has been running radio ads in New Jersey and Washington tied to the new laws.
Cellular executives generally say they're not familiar with the research that raises questions about the safety of hands-free devices. "Isn't it obvious that it's safer to have a headset on?" says Denny Strigl, the chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless. "Two hands on the wheel, how can that be less safe than driving with the phone at your ear?"
David Strayer, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah who has been looking into cellphones and driving safety for more than a decade, has some answers to that question. Dr. Strayer's Ph.D. research in psychology at the University of Illinois focused on distractions faced by airplane pilots. In a brief stint working for a phone company he had the idea of looking at the impact of what were then called "car phones" on people's driving ability. The company wasn't interested, but when he moved to Utah he started studying the subject.
In one study with colleague William Johnston, he put 48 undergraduates in front of a computer display and told them to hit a brake button on a joystick as soon as they saw a red light. The results, published in the journal Psychological Science in 2001, showed cellphone users were twice as likely to miss the red light as nonusers, with no difference between hand-held and hands-free use.
Most recently, three Utah psychology professors -- Frank Drews, Monisha Pasupathi and Dr. Strayer -- put 48 adults behind the wheel of a driving simulator. They found drivers talking on the phone with headsets missed four times as many exits as drivers talking to another passenger. The study notes that a fellow passenger "collaborates in the task of driving safely by referring to traffic and conversing about it ... something that a person on the other end of a cellphone cannot do."
Meanwhile, NHTSA has been doing its own research in collaboration with scientists at the Transportation Research Center in East Liberty, Ohio, and the University of Iowa. A recently completed study points to a separate potential danger: Even truly hands-free phones can be time-consuming to dial. It found that headset users with voice-activated dialing took an average of 37 seconds to dial their calls versus 20 seconds for those who picked up the phone and punched the buttons. The study, with 54 participants, has been accepted for publication in a collection of papers being presented at the annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
In July 2003, as Dr. Strayer was preparing to issue one of his studies, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association advised corporate public-relations departments in a memo how to throw water on his findings. One of the talking points noted that car accidents have declined in recent years even as cellphone use has surged. The industry association also pointed to a long list of other potential distractions, such as unruly children and talkative passengers.
Wireless companies say they haven't researched the safety implications of using cellphones themselves. But they point to research that could bolster the notion that cellphone use by drivers is not a big problem. In the summer of 2003, a study by University of North Carolina researchers appeared to suggest that cellphone use by drivers wasn't a big problem. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which funded the research, declared cellphones ranked next to last on a list of common distractions for drivers. The cellular-industry association issued a press release, and newspapers nationwide reported the study as evidence that cellphones are a minor distraction.
The study's lead author now says the industry's spin was misleading. "I don't see these studies as saying cellphones are not dangerous at all -- they just say there are many things in addition to cellphones," says Jane Stutts, the associate director for social and behavioral research at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.
In her study, Dr. Stutts and her researchers videotaped 70 drivers to see how much time they spent doing various potentially distracting activities. The researchers found that the percentage of time spent by drivers on the phone was fairly low at 1.3%. Talking to other passengers, the most common activity, took up 15% of the drivers' time.
But the report also listed several findings indicating cellphone use behind the wheel could be risky. For example, although drivers spent roughly the same amount of time fiddling with their car radios as they did talking on cellphones, Dr. Stutts and her team found cellphone users were four times as likely to have their hands completely off the wheel while dialing or answering the phone. And cellphone users failed to look at the road 68% of the time while dialing or answering their phones. Drivers talking to passengers took their eyes off the road only 4% of the time.
Dr. Stutts says risk from cellphones is growing because of exploding use. Since she finished collecting data in November 2001, the time Americans spend talking on the phone in cars has sharply increased. "Basically," she says, "I think cellphones do contribute to crashes. They are dangerous."
The study's sponsor, the AAA Foundation, gets much of its funding from the American Automobile Association, whose local clubs sell cellphone services. J. Peter Kissinger, the foundation's president and chief executive, said its research is independent of the AAA and was intended only to highlight other distractions faced by drivers, not to downplay the risk of cellphone use. "If anyone has asked me, 'Are cellphones a distraction?' there is never any hesitation in my mind. And my recommendation is don't use them," Mr. Kissinger says.
Dr. Runge calls the episode with Dr. Stutts a lesson in how science can get simplified. "That was a very unfortunate media discussion," he says. "The thing took on a life of its own."
Recent research by the Virginia Tech Center for Transportation Research suggests cellphones actually play an important role in accidents. The center, with NHTSA funding, videotaped 100 drivers for a year to study cellphone safety. Tom Dingus, the center's director, says a preliminary review of the results has found that "the biggest distracting agent was cellphones -- much higher than eating or grooming or tuning the radio." Mr. Dingus said his group recorded at least five cellphone-related crashes out of more than 50 total crashes captured on video.
Worried that the push for hands-free legislation didn't reflect the latest research, Dr. Runge requested a meeting in late June 2003 of top Transportation Department officials. Dr. Runge and his researchers presented studies showing hands-free devices didn't improve safety and offered estimates of how many people might die from cellphone use in cars. Dr. Runge urged the attendees, including the department's chief of staff, John Flaherty, to consider ways of getting that message to the public.
One idea that emerged from the meeting was to send a letter to all 50 governors signed by the transportation secretary. It was drafted July 9, 2003. But the letter was never sent. Dr. Runge offers several explanations, including the need to focus on other safety campaigns and the lack of a study proving once and for all how dangerous hands-free cellphones are. NHTSA has yet to issue an estimate of how many crashes and accident deaths are caused by cellphones. A spokesman says about 25%-30% of accidents are distraction-related but it isn't clear what percentage of the distractions come from cellphones. Nonetheless, Dr. Runge says he is convinced of the danger from hands-free phones.
Mr. Flaherty, the chief of staff, is less convinced. "I think public policy should be where the science takes us," he says, "and NHTSA is currently doing two important studies that are going to help us make those determinations." That's a reference to the NHTSA-funded research in Iowa and Ohio along with the study at Virginia Tech. While scientists at both places have collected data and reached some preliminary conclusions, they have yet to analyze and publish all of the results.
Before joining the department in 2001, Mr. Flaherty worked at a Washington lobbying firm and once represented the cellphone industry association. He says that assignment had nothing to do with cellphone use in cars -- it involved wireless access to 911 emergency lines -- and hasn't affected his thinking on the issue.
Write to Jesse Drucker at jesse.drucker@wsj.com and Karen Lundegaard at karen.lundegaard@wsj.com
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