AL Governor Bentley Signs Law to Prohibit Texting While Driving

Kevin Jones
Technical Analyst

On Tuesday, 08 May 2012, Alabama governor Robert Bentley signed a bill that outlaws texting while driving. The law goes into effect on 01 August 2012. The law doesn’t prohibit dialing a phone; however, it does ban texting, instant messaging, and sending emails while operating an automobile.

Alabama is the 38th state to make texting while driving illegal. Under the new law, if a person is ticketed for a texting-while-driving offense, he or she could be fined up to $75 and receive violations on his or her driving record. Gov. Bentley compared the new law to Alabama’s seatbelt law, which is also a measure to prevent fatalities in motor vehicle crashes.

Read a news article about Alabama’s new law banning texting while driving.

NHTSA Proposes Guidelines Against "Excessively Distracting Devices"

William Messerschmidt
Principal Technical Analyst

On 02/24/12, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed new guidelines for auto manufacturers that cover original-equipment, in-vehicle devices that augment or facilitate “secondary tasks” in which visual information is received and a physical action is performed in response to that information.

By “secondary tasks,” NHTSA means actions that we perform while we operate or control the vehicle, which are not part of the primary task (driving), such as entertainment and communication. For example, the timely prompt from your GPS device to “in a half mile, make a right turn,” is considered part of the primary task (driving), but texting a friend your arrival time is a secondary task.

Almost all drivers engage in secondary tasks while driving (such as adjusting climate control, changing radio stations), and often there is very little decrease in their safety. However, as technological advances make more and more options accessible to the driver, the potential exists to build in dangerous devices. For example: your in-dash GPS display isn’t a distraction under most circumstances, but imagine if that same display showed your Facebook News Feed! [Please note that absolutely no manufacturer has ever proposed this extreme example.]

In order to differentiate between the less extreme (and more realistic) examples of safe versus unsafe technology, researchers considered variables such as the type of information displayed, the manner in which it is displayed, and the type of manual response elicited by the information.

The NHTSA guideline describes five types of displays or devices that are always unsafe. They are:

• Photographic or video images not immediately related to driving (images such as blindspot cameras, GPS navigation, and weather information are considered directly related to the driving task);
• Photographic or graphical static visual images that are unrelated to driving (such as album art and personal photos);
• Automatically scrolling text;
• Manual text entry of more than six key presses;
• Reading more than 30 characters (not including spaces and punctuation).

You can read a short summary of the new NHTSA Guidelines at Occupational Safety Online, or view the document in its entirety in the Federal Register, Vol. 77, Issue 37.

"Green" Drivers: Proceed with Caution

Kelly Messerschmidt
Technical Communications Manager

Every year, close to 11,000 "green" drivers - teen and young adults ages 15-24 - die in motor vehicle accidents. This is the equivalent of an airplane-full of young people dying each week.

At the "Alive at 25" defensive driving class, put on by the National Safety Council (NSC) and State Farm Insurance, in Birmingham, Alabama, June 14-16, 2011, instructor Janice Leverette told an audience of teen drivers that "the person right next to you is 'the other person.'" And that YOU are the "other person" to everyone else. She explained that you cannot make assumptions about what other people on the road are going to do.... You don't know what they are thinking, or what challenges they are facing behind their own steering wheel. However, while you can't control other drivers, it is your number one responsibility to control yourself and your vehicle. In order to arrive at your destination alive, you need to stay alert, attentive, and understand the hazards and consequences of what you do. Because no one plans to get into an accident.

During the class, the teens shared some of the challenges they've experienced and observed as new drivers. Distractions, lack of experience, "other people" on the road, inattention, arrogance, and feeling like certain rules of the road are "optional" were just some of the challenges this group has witnessed.

"Alive at 25" is an important and valuable class. As an adult sitting in on the class, it was a real eye-opener - and it served as a huge reminder to me that defensive driving is imperative. Something that surprised me (and also took me back down memory lane to my own teen years), was listening to the teens report having seen a number of seriously risky driving behaviors.

Bearing in mind that the oldest teens in today's class were 17, here are some of the things these young adults reported having SEEN other drivers doing: using drugs and/or alcohol, texting and using iPods while driving, dancing in the car, driving "crazy" for "fun," and taking risks for the thrill of it. As Ms. Leverette pointed out to the group, "you are your number one risk on the road." However, you should make the choices that will allow you to survive to grow old.

Strategies that were discussed in the class to help drivers be safer included:

• Keeping a following distance of at least three seconds;
• Slowing down in road construction zones;
• Paying attention while on the road and especially during poor weather conditions;
• Being very careful of pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcycles, and also slow-moving vehicles;
• Not participating in distracting activities;
• Watching out for hazards and having a plan;
• Not speeding;
• Taking responsibility for your decisions;
• Buckling up every time you get in a vehicle.

The class participants were very engaged in the class, and they participated actively with each other. I believe the class was very successful in presenting powerful material to teens in a way that was both candid and meaningful. It's not too late to register for one of tomorrow's sessions of Alive at 25; tomorrow's sessions are geared to new drivers and attendance is free. The sessions will take place at 2125 Data Office Drive, Suite 102, in Hoover, Alabama. There is a session tomorrow at 8am and another one at 1pm. The class is three hours long. Refreshments are provided, and each participant receives a t-shirt and a red thumb ring to serve as a reminder to not text and drive. Call 1-800-457-7233 to sign up or to learn more.

If you can't make it for these new-driver sessions of "Alive at 25," there will be more offered this October during Teen Driver Week. However, the class is also offered to experienced drivers, as well as people who have received moving violations. To view contact information for signing up or learning more, please visit the National Safety Council’s Alabama Chapter online.

Technology Aside, Driver Safety is Top Priority for NHTSA

Kevin Jones
Technical Analyst

With so many telematics and smart phone technologies built into today’s automobile, what’s possible seems limitless. More and more, it looks like we’re closing the gap between what Hanna-Barbera’s The Jetsons envisioned in the 1960s and where we are now.

Nevertheless, all of this technology is not as openly welcomed as you might think. While there is a lot of excitement about new technologies and their being incorporated into automobiles, some safety advocates would like to see more restraint.

On June 9, 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Administrator, David L. Strickland, spoke at the 2011 Detroit Diesel conference in Novi, Michigan. Mr. Strickland praised the use of vehicle technology that supports such functions as vehicle maintenance and also the use of navigation systems to help first-responders in the event of vehicle crashes. However, he made it clear that he does not support technologies that are distracting to drivers. In Mr. Strickland’s presentation, titled "USDOT Sheds Lights on Driver Distraction Issues (Crucial Session)," he expresses that while drivers’ connecting to all the new technologies in their vehicle is not necessary, some vehicle owners still very much embrace the technologies being added to vehicles.

In May 2011, at the Association for Safer International Road Travel Annual Gala Fundraiser, in Washington, D.C., Mr. Strickland spoke about the need for crash avoidance technologies. In his remarks, Mr. Strickland says, “Crash avoidance technologies provide an opportunity to save lives and reduce injuries by supporting the driver and preventing crashes from occurring in the first place.” He also puts forth that vehicle to-vehicle communication and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication are two possible ways to help reduce the number of automobile crashes.

However, at the same time that these safety applications are making a positive difference in reducing crashes, and while their use is being encouraged, NHTSA is simultaneously “taking a hard look at these systems” and challenging both the auto industry and cell phone industry to work hand-in-hand with federal transportation officials “to keep the driver on their required task: driving.”

New Anti-Distracted Driving Rules Announced at the 2010 Distracted Driving Summit

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced at yesterday’s second national Distracted Driving Summit that the federal government is initiating a new rulemaking to limit commercial truck drivers’ use of all electronic devices while hauling hazardous materials, as well as seeking to ban text messaging by all drivers hauling hazardous materials.

These announcements came on the heels of last week’s proposed rulemaking submitted to the White House for final review, which would prohibit all truck drivers from texting while driving. It is likely that this rule will be published in the Federal Register as early as next week, in which case the rule would take effect in late October.

Read more about LaHood's announcements during yesterday's Distracted Driving Summit.

Learn about distracted driving and the summit at DOT's site.