Just for the record – Mary Doyle and Joe Simitian on hands-free driving

Through the urging of SVP and General Counsel Mary Doyle, Palm was an early advocate of the California hands-free law, which goes into effect this week. This video features Mary and Senator Joe Simitian, the bill's sponsor, discussing how the law helps make roads safer for everyone. "You can talk as long as you want, you can talk as often as you want, but if you do it hands free, we know we're going to save lives," says Senator Simitian.

According to a CNN article, the Department of Transportation estimates that 4,000 of the 8,000 auto accidents that occur daily in the United States can be attributed to distractions while driving. Going hands free is just one step we can all take to make the roads safer for everyone.

-Paul Loeffler

Comments

[Richly Chheuy]

I generally agree that cell phones are the biggest risk factor in the car because most other distractions in the car are fleeting (such as reaching over for a tissue or changing the radio station), whereas you have dolts on the freeway or bumper to bumper traffic talking for hours on end on their phone. And every time I see someone holding a phone while driving, I can only cringe inside. They're a serious problem on the road.

Whether or not we should have legislation in the first place to force people to use hands-free devices is another issue entirely. I believe this will curb accidents in the short term, but again, there are so many distractions in the car and on the road that cell phones are just one of many problems.

I'd rather get rid of "bad drivers" first. That'll keep the roads safer.

BTW Palm, if you had native Bluetooth voice dialing for some of your devices, that would keep the roads even more safe ;-)

[Mark in CA]

If I were you, I wouldn't be bragging about supporting the new CA hands-free law. It's a feel-good measure that does nothing to improve safety on the roads. It's not the holding of the phone that's the problem, it's the distraction of the conversation, and the law does nothing to diminish that.

The state of Washington has enacted a similar law. According to Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Virginia-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, "Laws like Washington's probably will have a big effect on making people feel good about passing a law but zero effect on highway safety."

A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers using cell phones are four times more likely to be in an accident. That study suggested that limiting cell phone usage to hands-free devices doesn't have much of an effect.

"If you continue to allow hands-free phoning, you haven't addressed the safety problem," Rader said.

[Mark]

So, how do we get 'rid of the bad drivers'? Which committee and execution squad will enforce it....?

[Richly Chheuy]

Just to follow up and after thinking about the issue further, I agree with Mark from CA on this one.

What the real problem is not holding the phone in one hand. It's the fact that any conversation going on will immediately distract us. Putting your phone next to your ear is a recipe for disaster. But also, having a Bluetooth headset in your ear doesn't do much to mitigate the problem (you're still 10 percent more likely to get into an accident with a hands-free bluetooth device--17 percent with a headset next to your ear).

The jury's still out on whether this new law in CA will actually curb--excuse the pun--accidents. However, my hunch will be: not that much, especially with those blinking blue earpieces right in their ears.

[Howie]

It would be nice if I could abide by this law, but unfortunately the Treo's do not support voice dial via a Bluetooth headset. I have had a Treo (actually many due to Palm's lack of QA testing leading to unbelievably faulty hardware) and I still do not understand why my $500.00 so-called "Smartphone" does not support this feature. It would be OK if the speaker on the Treo 700P or 755P was decent enough to use in place of this feature. Unfortunately the speaker phone on all Treo models except the Centro leads a lot to be desired.

Come on palm, would it really be that hard to fix the BlueTooth stack or god-forbid upgrade it to 2.0? Seriously, if Palm thinks that current, long-time Treo owners such as myself will just plop down another $500 bucks when they decide to release a "new" device - - forget it. We will all switch to competitors.

[Richly Chheuy]

@Mark I'd prefer punishing them with a Treo 700p =).

[Mary Doyle (Palm, Inc.)]

Re: http://blog.palm.com/palm/2008/06/just-for-the-re.html#comment-120702228

From Palm’s perspective, the best approach has been to give our customers the option of using our products hands free so that they can keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel when driving. There are many benefits of cell phone use that people aren’t likely to sacrifice when driving (e.g. calling ahead when you’re running late, reporting an object in the road, calling for directions or for help, etc.). In fact, it’s probably impractical to ban all of these sorts of activities, and very hard to imagine how any such ban might be enforced. The compliance rates are reportedly very low in states that have altogether banned cell phone use in the car.

Senator Simitian’s bill adopts this practical approach, which we agree is more likely to achieve widespread adoption and will undoubtedly save lives. Perhaps the greatest impact the new law will have is raising awareness of an urgent safety issue.

Here is an article from Edmunds that dives deeper into the subject:
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/safety/articles/43812/article.html

Mary Doyle, Palm, Inc.

[Cliff Greenberg]

The number of subjective opinions presented here, unburdened by data, is amazing. So I think I'll contribute mine: as a safety professional and an amateur race car driver I am probably more aware of the issue of distractions than most drivers. First, most drivers have such a small margin between competence and drifting out of their lane that they shouldn't be allowed a cell phone except for emergency. Second, based on my personal experience, there is a marginal improvement when the phone isn't being held to the head, maybe because only one hemisphere of the brain is involved. It also creates the opportunity to use two hands to drive, but that is not likely to be acted on; the unused arm is usually draped over the pasenger seat. Third, the combination of marginal improvement and awareness will help, and that should make IIHS happy since their charter is increasing the bottom line for their parent insurance companies.