The cellphone paradox - where are all the accidents?

[ceg]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:50:21 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

No, there is a LOT of data. And contrary to the theorizing of the
alarmists, there is no REAL WORLD evidence that the literal explosion
of cell phone use has caused even a blip in accident rates. A few
anecdotes of 'I saw Santa on his cell phone and he drove his sleigh
right into the side of the chimney" don't prove that cell phones are
some special case of distraction that should be outlawed while we
still allow the carrying of chatty passengers, the eating of food, the
application of lipstick, and the fiddling with CDs and MP3 players.

I can't disagree with anything you said.

Even though I feel, in my heart, that cellphone use *must* be (somehow)
causing accidents, I can't find *any* evidence of it actually happening
in the USA government statistics on overall accident rates in the USA.

I see plenty of horrible anecdotes, but, they only make the paradox
worse.

If cellphone use is so bad, where are the accidents?

 

[ceg]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:46:35 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

I've elaborated on that very question earlier in this thread. The
short version is that most of the 'studies' are crap designed to prove
cell phones are dangerous thru a variety of nonsensical study
protocols. You want to prove pianos are dangerous? Do a study where
one person puts their head under the upraised and held in place by the
stick "hood" of the piano then simulate a magnitude 6 earthquake.
You'll find pianos to be quite dangerous.

I have to believe you.

The *one* statistic I would believe is overall accidents.

All the rest seem to be fabricated with an agenda in mind.

The funny thing is that they make the paradox even worse.

I can't be the only person to notice this though.

 

[ceg]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 22:03:11 -0500, Muggles wrote:

What if the same character flaw exists in people that not only
contributes to them being drunk drives, but also contributes to being
more easily distracted while driving?

This was brought up before as a possible solution to the paradox.

Basically, what it says is that dumbshits will have accidents no
matter what.

So, before cellphones existed, a certain percentage of dumbshits
had a certain (presumably large) percentage of the accidents. And,
after cellphone ownership skyrocketed, those same dumbshits (or
their direct descendents) *still* have a certain large percentage
of the accidents.

At least that dumbshit-are-dumbshits explanation solves the paradox.

 

[ceg]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:51:58 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

I agree with you, however, have you ever seen anyone playing a musical
instrument while driving?I never have.

Listening to music though, is far different that talking on the phone.
The brain can easily tune out the radio since it is a passive activity.
The phone requires your active participation and concentration. It
has been proven many times.

So using a cell phone should be much more dangerous AND result in a
SIGNIFICANT increase in accidents over the past 20 years as the use of
cell phones has exploded. Yet there isn't the slightest evidence of
that in the accident data.

This is the conundrum.

If cellphones are as dangerous as we think they are, then the accidents
*must* be going up.

But they're not.

So, something is wrong in our logic.

 

[Dan Espen]

ceg <curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> writes:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:

Yet, the paradox remains because actual accident statistics are
*extremely reliable*.

Why is that a paradox?

I thought the paradox was clear by my Fermi Paradox example.

Very funny.

The Fermi Paradox is about "absence of evidence for extraterrestrial
intelligence".

--
Dan Espen

 

[ceg]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:38:04 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

I don't see any reason to challenge the basic accident rates as
accurate enough for this discussion.

To be clear, I agree that the basic accident rates, as compiled
by the government, are probably as reliable as any data we'll
ever get.

If someone has *better* accident rate data for the USA, I'd
be perfectly happy for them to quote it though.

What we're looking for is an obvious huge jump in the accident
rate concomitant with the skyrocketing cellphone ownership rates.

That we can find no such correlation makes the paradox.
Where are all the accidents?

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 15:36:10 -0700, Ashton Crusher <demi@moore.net>
wrote:

And if cell phone use and texting is so
horrible, why do we allow the police to drive around all day talking
on their radios and typing on their mobile data terminals? Funny how
when outlawing teh "distraction" would interfere with the police state
suddenly it's not important to outlaw it.

Police and fire do not "type" on their mobile terminals. Most are set
to not allow input while moving. They also do not talk all day on the
radio. Just listen on a scanner and see how often someone actually
talks while moving. It's rare and maybe once per WEEK per officer at
most. Only in hot pursuit will they talk while moving. If there are
two officers in the car, the passenger will do the talking.

There are also other users of mobile data terminals that are exempted
by the Calif Vehicle Code. While the law was written to prevent
people from watching TV while driving, it has been expanded to data
terminals, GPS, computahs, etc. Section 27602:
<https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcmath:/dmv_content_en/dmv/pubs/vctop/vc/d12/c5/a5/27602>

Note that ham radio operators have been exempt. Part of the reason is
that there was no evidence of any significant accidents or fatalities
to hams resulting from talking while moving when the ordinance was
inscribed. There are about 2,000 ham operators in the county. I
think I've met about 1/3 of them. In the last 40 years, I don't know
of any that have died or been injured while driving, much less while
talking on the radio.

So, what's the difference between texting, talking, and ham radio
operation? Ham radio is a simplex operation. You can only talk and
listen, one at a time, and not simultaneously, such as on the
telephone. We seem to be able to handle either the input or output
channel quite easily, but not simultaneously. I've done some crude
testing to see if that's true. When I use a PTT (push to talk
microphone) to make a phone call while moving, there's no problem
because my caller and I are operating simplex. The same operation
done with a handset, in full duplex mode, it highly distracting and
sometimes confusing.

If you want innovation in this area, consider adding a typical mobile
radio microphone to a cell phone, add a loudspeaker, set it up for
simplex, and maybe the mythical accident rate will fall. If not, I
can probably arrange the statistics to demonstrate that it will.

For texting, I had a recent bad experience. I was the passenger in a
car where the driver was getting "notifications" continuously roughly
twice per minute. The phone would make an obnoxious noise when they
arrived. He just couldn't resist the temptation to look at his phone
and see what had just arrived. I mentioned it to him, and was
ignored. There was no interactive texting or chat session, but plenty
of approximately 3 second distractions. That's enough for an
accident. Fortunately, there were none, although I was tempted to
kiss the ground as I exited the vehicle.

Note, I'm not addressing Texting... that's not a
'distraction', it is literally a separate task from driving and I
would expect properly done research would show it's in a whole
different class of hazards from talking on a phone. But that's just
an expectation.

Yep. You got it. The smartphone has an accelerometer and can easily
tell when it's moving. Buffer incoming texts and block the keyboard
while the phone is moving. End of problem (until it's hacked).

Apps are already available but it really should be built into the
phone firmware:
<https://play.google.com/store/search?q=no%20text%20while%20driving%20app&c=apps>




--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Dan Espen]

ceg <curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> writes:

The paradox is that cellphone ownership skyrocketed in the past few years
in the USA, while accidents continued on the *same steady decline* that
they had been on for decades.

Here's a hint:

cell phone ownership IS NOT EQUAL TO cell phone usage while driving

--
Dan Espen

 

[Dean Hoffman]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:14:45 -0500, ceg <curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:

PARADOX 2: If 98.5% of the drivers are already such responsible users of
cellphones, then why the need for the laws that penalize cellphone use
while driving?

Because there's no end of people who think they should tell others how
to
live their lives. Mandatory wiper laws are an example. I guess there are
still people who think living isn't terminal.
This http://tinyurl.com/qclh5gg leads to the Carpe Diem site.
It talks about a woman who successfully challenged Mississippi's Board
of Cosmetology. They required 18 months of schooling for people who
wanted to braid hair professionally.



--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

 

[Ashton Crusher]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:58:37 +0000 (UTC), ceg
<curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:38:06 +0100, Gareth Magennis wrote:

QUOTE:
In 2014, 1.5 per cent of car drivers in England were observed using a
hand-held mobile phone whilst driving. This is similar to the 1.4 per
cent of car drivers in England observed using a hand-held mobile phone
in 2009 and is not a statistically significant change.
UNQUOTE.

I only mention the USA accident *rate* because we have *reliable* numbers
for the USA, both prior and during the skyrocketing cellphone ownership
rates in the USA.

Do we have reliable accident rate figures for the UK to see if the
cellphone paradox applies to the UK as much as it does to the USA?

Speaking of the UK, they did a study of the influence of speed cameras
(they have a LOT of them) on accidents and it showed that where there
were cameras that statistically the accidents INCREASED. They
attempted to bury the report. It was eventually released but
uniformly ignored by those in power. Further proof, as if more was
needed, that speed cameras are for revenue, not safety.

 

[Scott Dorsey]

Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote:

Police and fire do not "type" on their mobile terminals. Most are set
to not allow input while moving. They also do not talk all day on the
radio. Just listen on a scanner and see how often someone actually
talks while moving. It's rare and maybe once per WEEK per officer at
most. Only in hot pursuit will they talk while moving. If there are
two officers in the car, the passenger will do the talking.

Around here, it is routine to see two officers in the car. When they
are not on their way to a call, one officer is driving while the second
officer is typing every license plate he sees into the terminal and
running plates as fast as he can in hopes of finding a car with
outstanding warrants. There is a very distinct division of tasks.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:24:42 +0000 (UTC), ceg
<curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:
Why is that a paradox?

I thought the paradox was clear by my Fermi Paradox example.

Think again. The Fermi Paradox is better stated as:
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Much of this has its basis in theology where wrestling over the
existence of God is an international sport. A more simplistic version
is that you can't prove anything with nothing as evidence.

The corollary also doesn't work where:
"Quantity of evidence is not evidence of quantity".
In other words, just because you have a large pile of numbers, doesn't
mean you can prove a large number of things.

The problem is that the "Fermi Paradox" is the logic sucks.

"The great Enrico Fermi proposed the following paradox. Given
the size of the universe and evidence of intelligent life on
Earth making it non-zero probability for intelligent life
elsewhere, how come have we not been visited by aliens? Where
is everybody?, he asked."

No matter how minute the probability of such life, the size
should bring the probability to 1. (In fact we should have
been visited a high number of times: see the Kolmogorov and
Borel zero-one laws.)

So, what's missing? Well, it's time or rather how many solar
revolutions a civilization can exist without destroying itself or
having some cosmic catastrophe do it for them. The details are worked
out in the Drake Equation:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation>
which computes the probability of two civilizations coming into
contact. If you happen to be a pessimist, and use pessimistic
probabilities, the probability might as well be zero. Inflating the
statistical population to astronomical proportions does nothing to
change the probabilities and certainly will not result in a 100%
chance of an alien encounter.




--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per ceg:
>Where are all the accidents?

How about under reporting?

How could cell phone-generated accidents get into the system as such?

Guy I used to windsurf with bought the farm a couple of years ago when a
guy in an F-150 drove into him from the back at highway speed (i.e.
50-60 mph).

He was riding on a wide shoulder, bright clear day, no intersections.

I have a hard time imagining that the guy who killed him told the
investigating officer "Yeah, I was just so into this (cell phone
conversation/text message/email) that I drifted on to the shoulder and
drove right into the victim."

Same with the buy who almost got me on the Atlantic City Expressway a
couple years ago: I'm running the right lane, guy in the left lane just
starts drifting into me and I can see him holding something in one hand
and poking his finger at it with the other hand (steering with his
knees?).... I took the shoulder and avoided contact - but if there had
been an accident I would not have expected the other driver to 'fess up.

Same with the guy in a pickup truck that almost nailed me on my bike
several years ago. I was riding on a very large cross-hatched (no
cars) area. I saw him coming - intent on *something* between his
knees... I zigged, he didn't zag and then he drove right through the
space I was occupying... never looked up. If I had woken up dead that
day, I am pretty sure he would have some other explanation than "I was
absorbed in my cell phone".

And then there is the Canadian study that equated driving while talking
on a cell phone with some level of alcohol intoxication....
--
Pete Cresswell

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On 16 Aug 2015 20:42:19 -0400, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Around here, it is routine to see two officers in the car. When they
are not on their way to a call, one officer is driving while the second
officer is typing every license plate he sees into the terminal and
running plates as fast as he can in hopes of finding a car with
outstanding warrants. There is a very distinct division of tasks.
--scott

Sounds like New Yuck City. You must live in a technically
impoverished area. Even the local fast food restaurants now have
license plate readers. The technology is quite common on the left
coast:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=automatic+license+plate+recognition+system&tbm=isch>
<http://www.licenseplatesrecognition.com/how-lpr-works.html>
<http://www.licenseplaterecognition.com>
<http://elsag.com/licenseplatereader.htm>
<http://www.theiacp.org/ALPR>
etc... Even cheap security cameras have a headlight blocking feature:
<http://www.cctvcamerapros.com/License-Plate-Capture-Cameras-s/283.htm>

Are you sure the second officer is typing in license plates and not
updating his Facebook page?

"Don't worry about the radios. We can always use Twitter for
dispatch"
(Don't ask me who said that).

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per ceg:

Overall accident statistics for the USA are very reliable, since they are
reported by police, insurance companies, and by individuals.

Am I the only one that sees a non-sequitur in that statement?

I'm thinking it's somewhere in here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

But I'm haven't drunk enough coffee lately to find it.
--
Pete Cresswell

 

[Ashton Crusher]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:47:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 22:49:38 +0000 (UTC), ceg
curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:

Overall accident statistics for the USA are very reliable, since they are
reported by police, insurance companies, and by individuals.

Most people lie on accident reports to avoid potential complications
with insurance payments. For example, few will admit that it was
their fault when the traffic policeman is standing there just waiting
for a confession and to deliver an expensive ticket.

Anecdote time. While going to medical skool, a doctor friend worked
in the coroners office of a large city. Like all large cities, the
coroners office had a steady stream of deadbeats, bums, winos, and
homeless that arrived without the benefit of medical attention and
records. Not wanting to spend the money on an autopsy and a medical
examiner, they quietly guessed at the cause of death with fairly good
accuracy. However, after a few embarrassing mistakes, that was deemed
unacceptable. Causes unknown were also not a viable option. So, they
inscribed "heart failure" on all such cases, which was certainly true,
but not necessarily the cause of death. That actually worked well for
a few years, until someone ran statistics on what appeared to be a
heart disease epidemic centered in this large city. The city now
requires either an attending physician report or a mandatory autopsy.

While I'm not in a position to prove or demonstrate this, I think
you'll find that such "accident" reports are highly opinionated, are
skewed in the direction of smallest settlements, and are rarely
corrected.

The numbers are high enough, and consistent enough, to make the error
only a very small percentage.

Right. Big numbers are more accurate.

The theory is that given a sufficiently large number of independent
studies, the errors will be equally distributed on both sides of a
desired result, and therefore cancel. That has worked well for global
warming predictions. Unfortunately, the studies have to be
independent to qualify and does not work at reducing the distribution
in a single study.

You won't get *better* data that the census bureau data on accidents in
the USA by state - and none are showing what we'd expect.

OMG! Do you really trust the government to do anything correctly? I
wish I had your confidence and less personal experience. I'll spare
you another anecdote illustrating the problem at the city level.

Hence the paradox.
Where are the accidents?

Ok, think about it. You've just crashed your car into an immovable
object while texting. You're still conscious and on an adrenalin
high. The police are on their way and the last thing you need is for
them to find your smartphone on the floor of the vehicle. So, you
make a phone call to your wife telling her you'll be late for dinner
and by the way, you've decided to buy her a new car. The police walk
up, ask you a few questions, and notice you talking on the cell phone.
If you're cooperative, nothing happens. If you're a total jerk, the
mention the cell phone in their report, and you get nailed for
possibly talking/texting while driving. You're screwed if they
confiscate the phone for forensic analysis or request a call record
from you provider.

In short, the statisics are where they want them. If there's a
political or financial benefit to showing huge numbers of talk/text
driving accidents, they will magically appear. If they thing that
nobody really cares about the numbers, you will have a difficult time
finding them. If the numbers accumulate some academic interest, you
will see the same wrong information repeated endlessly in statistical
surveys and college dissertations. Everyone lies, but that's ok
because nobody listens. Incidentally, 87.3% of all statistics are
fabricated for the occasion.

You've missed the point. All those things you raise may well be true
but they were just as true before there were cell phones. The mix of
truth and lies in accident reports goes on but one key thing continues
and that is that virtually ALL significant accidents, certainly those
society might want to concern itself with, are REPORTED and go into
the statistics of HOW MANY accidents. Yeah, the listed causes might
be lies or honest mistakes but the NUMBERS are reported consistently
year after year after year. And its the NUMBERS of accidents ceg is
talking about as the data set, not the CAUSE that's listed. So we
know that the NUMBER of accidents, rate actually, the normalized
number, has steadily been going down down down.

Yet there are people claiming that a NEW and HORRIBLY DANGEROUS CAUSE
of accidents has been unleashed into the driving world, the Cell
Phone. We can't argue with the fact that over the past two decades
MILIIONS AND MILLLIONS of cell phones wound up in the hands of and
used by drivers, that's just a fact. But if all those cell phones are
REALLY this horribly DANGERIOUS ACCIDENT CAUSING instrument, WHERE ARE
THE ACCIDENTS????

 

[Ashton Crusher]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 22:21:39 -0400, Ed Pawlowski <esp@snet.net> wrote:

On 8/16/2015 7:10 PM, Muggles wrote:


I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.


I agree with you, however, have you ever seen anyone playing a musical
instrument while driving?I never have.

Listening to music though, is far different that talking on the phone.
The brain can easily tune out the radio since it is a passive activity.
The phone requires your active participation and concentration. It
has been proven many times.

So using a cell phone should be much more dangerous AND result in a
SIGNIFICANT increase in accidents over the past 20 years as the use of
cell phones has exploded. Yet there isn't the slightest evidence of
that in the accident data.

 

[Dean Hoffman]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 01:10:23 -0500, ceg <curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:

The cellphone paradox - where are all the accidents?

The Fermi Paradox is essentially a situation where we "assume" something
that "seems obvious"; but, if that assumption is true, then something
else
"should" be happening. But it's not.

Hence, the paradox.

Same thing with the cellphone (distracted-driving) paradox.

Where are all the accidents?

They don't seem to exist.
At least not in the United States.
Not by the federal government's own accident figures.

1. Current Census, Transportation: Motor Vehicle Accidents and Fatalities
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/transportation/motor_vehicle_accidents_and_fatalities.html

2. Motor Vehicle Accidents—Number and Deaths: 1990 to 2009
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

3. Motor Vehicle Crash Deaths in Metropolitan Areas — United States, 2009
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a2.htm

If you have more complete government tables for "accidents" (not deaths,
but "ACCIDENTS"), please post them since the accidents don't seem to
exist
but, if cellphone distracted driving is hazardous (which I would think it
is), then they must be there, somewhere, hidden in the data.

Such is the cellphone paradox.

Mythbusters on the Science Channel just aired a test of hands free
vs. hands on cell phone
use while driving. All but one test subject failed their simulator test
either by crashing or getting lost.
Thirty people took the test. The show aired 9:30 CDT on August 16.

--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

 

[Ashton Crusher]

On 16 Aug 2015 19:54:01 -0400, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

ceg <curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:10:06 -0500, Muggles wrote:

I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.

If that is the case, that cellphone usage is *not* distracting, then,
instantly, that would *solve* the paradox.

It's true, playing music can be pretty distracting. It isn't normally,
but sometimes it can be.

But, then, how do we reconcile that observation with the fact that
(unnamed) "studies show" that cellphone use is "as distracting as
driving drunkly"?

Well, around here, driving drunkly was common and normal behaviour for
a large segment of the population thirty years ago, and now it isn't.
Perhaps as a hazard it has disappeared and been replaced with texting
while driving instead.

The *new* paradox looms - which is - if cellphone use isn't distracting,
then why do "studies show" that it *is* distracting (as drunk driving)?

Nothing makes sense in all these arguments.
There is very little intelligent discussion.

This is true, because there is very little actual data. So an intelligent
discussion is pretty much impossible.
--scott

No, there is a LOT of data. And contrary to the theorizing of the
alarmists, there is no REAL WORLD evidence that the literal explosion
of cell phone use has caused even a blip in accident rates. A few
anecdotes of 'I saw Santa on his cell phone and he drove his sleigh
right into the side of the chimney" don't prove that cell phones are
some special case of distraction that should be outlawed while we
still allow the carrying of chatty passengers, the eating of food, the
application of lipstick, and the fiddling with CDs and MP3 players.

 

[Ashton Crusher]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 23:25:35 +0000 (UTC), ceg
<curt.guldenschuh@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 18:10:06 -0500, Muggles wrote:

I highly doubt it's any more distracting than playing music might be.

If that is the case, that cellphone usage is *not* distracting, then,
instantly, that would *solve* the paradox.

But, then, how do we reconcile that observation with the fact that
(unnamed) "studies show" that cellphone use is "as distracting as
driving drunkly"?

The *new* paradox looms - which is - if cellphone use isn't distracting,
then why do "studies show" that it *is* distracting (as drunk driving)?

I've elaborated on that very question earlier in this thread. The
short version is that most of the 'studies' are crap designed to prove
cell phones are dangerous thru a variety of nonsensical study
protocols. You want to prove pianos are dangerous? Do a study where
one person puts their head under the upraised and held in place by the
stick "hood" of the piano then simulate a magnitude 6 earthquake.
You'll find pianos to be quite dangerous.

Nothing makes sense in all these arguments.
There is very little intelligent discussion.

So, maybe the solution to the paradox is, as you said, "it really
doesn't matter" whether someone is using the phone while driving,
or not, with respect to accident rates in the USA???

But that flies against "common wisdom".