A new study from the University of Toronto released last week concludes drivers face a four-fold increase in risk of having an injury-producing accident when using a cellular telephone.
Researchers Dr. Donald Redelmeier and Dr. Robert Tibshirani studied 699 drivers who had cellular phones and who had been involved in traffic accidents, analyzing 26,798 cases in all.
“Our study found a four-fold increase in the risk of a collision during the brief interval of time that an individual was using their cellular telephone,” Redelmeier said.
The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
An accompanying editorial in the journal predicted that accidents caused by cellular phones could account for 0.6 percent to 1.2 percent of all traffic accidents by 2000 and could cost $2 billion to $4 billion a year.
When the story hit the fan Wednesday night, several major television news broadcasts announced cellular phone use was as hazardous as drunk driving. The study actually stated that the relative risk was similar to the hazard associated with driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit, which Redelmeier put at .10 percent. However, some states mandate a lower threshold level and may indeed equate cellular use with drunk driving. Of course, with cellular phones the risk, if any, drops to zero when the call is completed, while alcohol impairment lasts for hours.
Researchers also noted that 39 percent of drivers studied used their cellular phones to call for emergency services after the accident.
The study recommended people avoid unnecessary calls, keep conversations brief and suspend conversations when driving conditions become hazardous. It did not call for a ban on cellular phones in cars.
Researchers did not find a difference in risk between using a portable wireless phone held to the driver’s ear or in a hands-free device.
This high-profile news item-reported in major newspapers and evening news programs-has come at a critical time for the industry as it expands into the mass market and when wireless conversations may lengthen due to competition-driven declines in airtime pricing.
Motorola Inc. is facing a $35 million lawsuit filed in 1995 on behalf of Rochelle and Ronald Silber, who were severely injured when another car traveling in the opposite direction crossed over the line and hit them head on. The Silbers allege that the driver of the other car was distracted by reaching for a Motorola cellular phone.
“Accidents like this happen regularly, accidents like this are waiting to happen every day, and the cellular phone industry is doing nothing,” their attorney William Groner said.
Groner referred to a Rochester Institute of Technology study that he claimed documented a 34 percent increase in risk of having an accident when using cellular phones in cars. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association discredited that study as misleading, premature and erroneous-specifically that it involved a tiny, statistically insignificant test group and was not funded, peer reviewed or published.
But the Toronto study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine is a different matter and strengthens his argument, Groner said.
“Any time the leading medical journal in the country has an editorial that supports our claim, of course it’ll add credence to our case,” he said. “It mirrors what we have been saying for a couple of years about the responsibility of manufacturers. The article addresses the moral responsibility, we address the legal responsibility.”
Groner said the lawsuit is going through discovery and perhaps is still a year-and-a-half away from trial.
“Our case involves one family but we have been contacted by lawyers and other families around the country about similar claims,” Groner added. “We are considering them.”
A Motorola spokesman said the company would not comment on pending litigation.
“[The Toronto study] doesn’t come as a surprise,” said Tim Ayers, vice president for communications at the CTIA. “It just provides a scientific foundation to what people know anyhow. What they’re talking about is using common sense.”
Ayers noted that CTIA and its member companies have made a multiyear effort to educate the public about safe driving. The policy is simple: When you are behind the wheel, your most important responsibility is safe driving. Period.
In regard to the Toronto study’s methodology, CTIA made four points.
It was a study of wireless phone users who were involved in accidents, not the preponderance of phone users not involved in accidents;
the associated risks cited deal with phone usage near the time of the accident but not necessarily at the time of the accident;
the four-fold increase in risk cited refers to the overall risk associated with driving;
and the results of the research deal with “association” not “cause.”
Ayers noted the many positive benefits of having cellular available in cars including the ability to call for help after an accident and to call police to report drunk driving. CTIA said more than 18 million emergency and 911 calls are made each year.
The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration also is researching the safety issue. Dr. Michael Goodman of the NHTSA’s Office of Crash Avoidance said his study will include a broad-based review of the literature and related methodologies as well as new research. He expects the report to be out by the end of March.
Goodman said establishing causality between a behavior like using a cellular phone and an accident is nearly impossible.
“For example, if someone uses their phone to call ahead and say they’re late for a meeting and then causes an accident by rushing in traffic, it’s the act of rushing that precipitates both the call and the crash,” he said. “The driver may have been off the phone for six minutes before the crash occurred.
“When you have an accident you don’t look at your wristwatch. The time of the accident has to be reconstructed later and how that is validated is critical,” he said.
Goodman also had reservations about the test group used in the Toronto study.
“They took volunteers who were cellular users and had been involved in an accident. That lets the person be his own control and may introduce bias. You need non-cellular users as a control group,” he said.
Jay Kitchen, president of the Personal Communications Industry Association, noted a 1995 Department of Transportation study of 56,000 fatal accidents which cited cellular phones as a contributing factor in only 40 cases.
“I’m concerned that the (Toronto) study focuses in on drivers who use cell phones instead of the general public,” he said.
Kitchen doubted there would be any long-term legislative fallout from the report in terms of banning cellular phones in cars.
“Anytime a report like this comes out there’s an initial overreaction but over time, as people zero in on the report and what it actually said, the intensity dies down,” he noted.
Regardless of the study’s long-term merits, its immediate impact is nonetheless damaging to the wireless industry’s image, and personal injury attorneys aren’t the only ones who will likely tee off on this new report. It will surely provide ammunition to those opposing wireless transmission site buildouts.
A recent survey of 600 people by the TynanGroup Inc. asked an open ended question about what they thought were the disadvantages of cellular. Overall, 20 percent mentioned problems with driver safety-a greater concern to the public than privacy and fraud issues and only behind cost as a negative factor>
