National Transportation Safety Board Seeks Cell Phone Ban for Drivers February 20, 2012

The National Transportation Safety Board has called for a nationwide cell phone ban for drivers, spurred by the horrific findings of its probe into a  2010 fatal text messaging crash.

“It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving,” NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman said last week during a hearing on a multi-vehicle wreck that occurred in 2010. “How many more lives will be lost before we, as a society, change our attitudes about the deadliness of distractions?”

NTSB board members called electronic distracted driving  the new DUI and said it’s fast becoming an epidemic.

An estimated 13.5 million drivers are on their cell phones at any moment during daylight hours, according to a report released earlier this month by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. One in 100 drivers are texting, making phone calls or using the Internet at any given moment, according to the report.

And 3,092 people died in 2010 in accidents liked to distracted driving, according to the U.S. Transportation Department. The DOT  banned the use of handheld cell phones by interstate truck and bus drivers on Nov. 23

For this new ban to take effect, states would have to agree to this plan by the NTSB, and that‘s not a given. There are still 17 states that have yet to outlaw all text messaging while driving, including Florida, South Carolina and Ohio. No state has yet to ban all cell phone use by drivers, although some state legislatures have considered it.

Those state legislatures that currently have cell phone bans for drivers have exempted devices with hands-free accessories such as Bluetooth headsets. The new NTSB recommendation goes a step further, asking for a ban on non-emergency use of all cell phones, smart phones, text messaging devices, and other portable electronic devices that are not related to operating the vehicle. The recommendation by the board was unanimous.

The NHTSA board called for campaigns to inform motorists of the new law and highly-visible enforcement to support distracted driving. During the hearing the board noted that Missouri’s State Highway Patrol issued only 120 citations for texting by drivers under 21 over a recent two-year period.

The findings that spurred this new recommendation were the result of a probe of a 2010 accident in Gray Summit, Mo., that killed two and injured 38. Daniel A. Schatz of Sullivan, driver of a pickup truck, rammed a truck-tractor after receiving and sending 11 texts in the 11 minutes before the wreck, the last received just moments before the collision. The pickup truck was rear-ended by one school bus, which was hit by another school bus. Two died, including Schatz.

“Driving was not (Schatz’s) only priority,” Hersman said. “No call, no text, no update is worth a human life.”

Other highly publicized distracted driving accidents cited by the NTSB report include:

• A commuter crash in Chatsworth, Calif., in 2008, caused by a texting operator, that killed 25 people and injured dozens.
• The 2010 crash near Munfordville, Ky, caused by a tractor-trailer driver using his cell phone, in which 11 people died.
• An airline incident from 2010 in which two pilots said their distracting laptops were the cause for their one-hour overshoot of the Minneapolis airport.
• The NTSB’s very first electronic distracted driving crash investigation from 2002, in which a novice driver on a cell phone left the roadway in Largo, Md., crossed the median and flipped the car over, killing five people.

For more on safe driving issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach car accident attorney.