DOT Backs Efforts of Nonprofit Group to Toughen Laws on Distracted Driving

This story appears in the Jan. 18 print edition of Transport Topics.

WASHINGTON — As the Department of Transportation continues its push to reduce vehicle crashes related to distracted driving, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the agency was lending its support to a new nonprofit group modeled on other victims’ advocacy coalitions to pressure lawmakers to ban text messaging and other forms of distraction.

“We’re on a rampage about this,” LaHood said during a Jan. 12 press conference.

Last year, LaHood convened a conference on distracted driving and since then has pushed for a ban on text messaging behind the wheel. Last week, he expanded that proposal to include banning the use of cell phones and other distractions.

“I don’t care what the distraction is: If you’re eating a hamburger, pulling through a fast-food restaurant, combing your hair, shaving, putting eye makeup on, trying to get a disruptive child in the back seat to behave — those are all distractions, and we’re against all of that,” he said.

LaHood said he also favored a ban on cell-phone use, but he conceded that “Congress will do what it will do.”

“They’re going to do something,” he said. “We’re going to push them to do something, and we’re going to work with them to do something.”

LaHood and representatives of the new advocacy group, named Focus Driven, said they hoped the organization would be able to persuade state legislatures and Congress to pass legislation to outlaw texting and cell-phone use. The group will be modeled on Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

In a draft of his remarks, LaHood said DOT was “working on new rules to strengthen restrictions on the use of electronic devices by rail, truck and bus operators.”

Last week, DOT said that rule, to be written by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, should be sent to LaHood later this month and could be published by the end of February.

LaHood has said that the rule is likely to affect not only cell-phone use but also the use of other in-cab technologies.

Terri Hallquist, a statistician with FMCSA, said at a Transportation Research Board meeting here that the “odds of being involved in a safety-related event are 23 times greater when texting messaging.”

In Hallquist’s presentation of data from a Virginia Tech study of truck drivers and texting, the crash risk for drivers “interacting with or looking at dispatching device” was nearly 10 times as high as for those not using the equipment.

That same study found that drivers sending a text message took their eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds out of the six-second intervals recorded.

At DOT, Janet Froetscher, president of the National Safety Council, said the group had compiled new research that found that “28% of all crashes may be caused by [talking on] cell phones or texting devices each and every single year.”

The bulk of that figure, Froetscher said, “25% or 1.4 million crashes, are caused by drivers using cell phones and an additional 3% or 200,000 crashes” result from texting.

Jennifer Smith, one of the founders of Focus Driven, said the group was pushing to outlaw more than just texting. She said she wanted to include hands-free use of cell phones because “there is no science or any studies that have shown that hands-free is any safer.”

Other agencies within DOT are doing their own research into distracted driving.

Also at TRB, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration officials said they soon would release the agency’s distracted driving research plan and model legislation for a texting ban.

The research plan, anticipated for release before the end of the winter, is expected to outline what steps are currently being taken to reduce distracted driving and to detail what is planned to enhance these efforts for the next two years.

“The ultimate goal is to eliminate crashes due to distractions,” said Stephanie Binder, an engineer in NHTSA’s Human Factors office.

NHTSA hopes the release of its model texting ban, expected this month, could help promote consistency and standardization for state and local governments, said Linda Cosgrove, head of NHTSA’s Behavioral Technology Division.

Meanwhile, to further combat distracted driving, NHTSA said it has started working with New York and Connecticut to set up an enforcement blitz similar to its “Click It or Ticket” seat-belt safety campaign.

These two states were selected because they are among those that prohibit using a handheld cell phone while driving. The yearlong program would feature media campaigns and four targeted enforcement waves throughout the year.