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Editorial
Texting, regardless method of input, is dangerous while driving
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
How did we ever survive the '70s?
In case you don't remember those days, ask your parents or watch a copy of "Smokey and the Bandit."
Yes, the driving was dangerous, but if a study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University can be applied to 40-year-old technology, the talking on the two-ways made it even worse.
Driving while texting on cell phones, the modern equivalent of CB radios, is accepted as being distracted to the point of being illegal in Nebraska and many other jurisdictions.
We wondered, however, whether new voice-to-text applications available on most smart phones is just as dangerous, or, perhaps more practically, could be argued in court to not, technically, be prosecuted as "texting.
The Texas study seems to have provided the answer to the first question, namely, yes.
The second will have to be hashed out in court, if it ever is.
"It didn't really matter which texting method you were using, your reaction times were twice as slow and your eyes were on the road much less often," said Christine Yager, who did the research for the university.
Using an eye-tracking device, the scientists measured how often drivers looked at the road, how long it took them to complete each text messaging task, and how long it took them to respond to a light that turned on periodically.
It turns out, voice-to-text applications are no safer than the officially banned method of tapping out text on a phone's keyboard.
We can only wonder what a similar test with CB radios would have revealed.
It's not an unimportant issue; some 3,300 people die in crashes caused by distracted driving each year, with 387,000 more injured in 2011, according to federal data. An AAA survey revealed almost 35 percent of drivers said they had recently read text messages or e-mail while driving, and 26 percent said they had sent a text message.
Driverless cars are already in the testing stage on some American highways, but we're afraid it will be some time before most of us will be confident enough to leave the driving to a collection of microchips.
Until then, safe driving demands our full-time attention.