Why mobile phones and motoring don't mix.


A DECADE ago, when mobile phones were the size of bricks, you could buy a nifty microphone and loudspeaker
gizmo that you clipped onto the handset and stuffed into a car's cup-holder, plugging the hefty power cord into the socket
for the cigarette lighter.

It provided genuine hands-free calling while on the road. It also allowed conference calls, and let everyone in the car
participate fully in the conversation.

Sure, you still had to punch in the numbers manually if you wanted to dial out, but it was a dream for answering calls while driving.
Bluetooth killed such gadgets. With their short range, low power and ample bandwidth, tiny Bluetooth radios broadcasting in the public 2.4-gigahertz band provided an ideal wireless hook-up for personal devices.

Bluetooth allows a mobile phone in your briefcase to connect seamlessly to the computer on your lap. The mouse and keyboard
no longer need to be plugged into the PC on the desk. Best of all, a Bluetooth headset can clip over your ear and communicate
with the mobile phone in your pocket, providing clear hands-free calling.

Unfortunately, only a small minority have bothered to use such headsets while driving. Your correspondent has bought several
over the years-and found all to be fiddly, uncomfortable and far from adequate. Besides, they make you look like a dork.
This correspondent swears drivers in southern California-never ones to notice anyone else's presence nor give an inch if they
do-have grown more aggressive and dangerous as mobile phones have grown more popular.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, agrees. As of July 1st, California will join New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Washington state and Washington, DC in banning the use of handheld mobile phones while driving.

Like other jurisdictions, California has also made it illegal for drivers under 18 years of age to use any "mobile-service device"
while operating a motor vehicle. Unlike adults, juvenile motorists are therefore forbidden from texting as well as phoning.

California will still let drivers use hands-free phones, and passengers can continue to put phones to their ears.
But get caught doing that while driving and it will cost you $76 for the first offence and $190 for the second.

Will that actually stop Californian motorists? Difficult to say. Washington, DC's ban only halved the number of motorists
using mobiles illegally. Drivers in New York have proved even bigger scofflaws.

The police in California have been collecting data on phone-related crashes since 2001. While notoriously under-reported,
mobile phones have been implicated irrefutably in only 2.8% of fatal and injurious car crashes. But accident figures from
Canada and Australia suggest that number is four times too low.

Another study, done by Virginia Tech for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, found that 80% of crashes
and 65% of near-crashes involved some form of distraction within three seconds of the crash. The most common distraction
by far was using a mobile phone.

When prosecuted for reckless driving, defendants often claim they are experienced multitaskers, and that using a phone
while driving is child's play. But driving is itself the most complex multitasking activity most people ever undertake.

Continuously, reliably and accurately, motorists must compute closing speeds, braking distances and proximity to other
vehicles, all while monitoring speed limits, traffic signals, street signs and changes in road surface, while still keeping a
wary eye open for pedestrians, animals and children. The last thing any motorist needs is yet another distraction.

This correspondent has written before about the perils of "change blindness" to drivers. This occurs when people fail to
notice sudden or gradual alterations in a complex scene.

Change blindness can stem from a momentary distraction-say, a blink of an eye or a sudden splash of mud on the windscreen.
That's all it takes for a motorist to completely miss something that's just entered the visual scene-such as a pedestrian stepping
onto a crossing. How often have you heard drivers claim they simply never saw the object they hit?

Something similar, called "inattentional blindness", happens when motorists talk on a phone.

Researchers at the University of Utah have used driving simulators to show that people can become so involved in
conversation that they fail to see objects on the road.

So, are hands-free phones the answer? No.

Ominously, a Swedish study recently found that motorists' reaction times increased disproportionately when they were
talking on the phone-regardless of whether they are using a handheld or hands-free phone. The only thing that counted
was the complexity of the conversation.

And you don't have to be the one doing all the talking for your reaction times to lengthen dangerously. According to scientists
at Carnegie Mellon University, merely listening can reduce activity in the region of the brain that processes spatial and visual
information by as much as 37%.

For emergencies, I have now bought a modern Bluetooth replacement (a Motorola T305) for the clunky old speakerphone
he had ages ago, and dutifully clips it on his car's sun visor before heading off.

But his rule now for making even hands-free calls is to pull over whenever possible. Meanwhile, incoming calls can be
picked up later from voice mail. And texting while driving-bizarrely still legal for adults under the new Californian law-has
to be just about the dumbest thing you can do.