WASHINGTON-The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, growing increasingly concerned about the use of mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets in vehicles, plans to expand its review of driver distractions to include Web services and other digital devices that car manufacturers intend to integrate into automobiles in coming years.
“It’s definitely something that the government is very interested in,” said Tim Hurd, a NHTSA spokesman.
NHTSA is in the early stages of organizing a conference or hearing to address digital vehicular driver distractions.
In a 1997 study, NHTSA concluded that talking on a mobile phone while driving can increase the risk of a crash. A study the same year by the New England Journal of Medicine came to the same conclusion.
NHTSA intends to update the 1997 mobile phone study.
A number of states are pursuing laws restricting cell phone use in cars. No states ban cell phone use in cars and only a few states limit their use by drivers. At the same time, many state legislatures are looking into the issue. A Baltimore delegate is pushing for a cell phone driving ban in Maryland.
Last November’s death of Morgan Lee Pena, a two-and-half-year-old girl killed in a collision caused by a man dialing his cell phone in Hilltown, Pa., has thrown the national spotlight on the issue.
It is now illegal in Hilltown for drivers to talk on their mobile phones.
In Florida last month, an Air Force security officer smashed his cruiser into a $39 million fighter jet while trying to grab his cell phone. The accident caused $62,000 damage to the F-15.
While some believe hands-free and voice recognition technologies can curb mobile phone distractions, studies show that is not necessarily the case. Being engrossed in a conversation on a mobile phone while driving has been identified as a significant factor in concentration loss while on the road.
“It’s not just taking your eyes off the road. A big part is taking your mind off the road,” said NHTSA’s Hurd.
Patricia Pena, the mother of Morgan Lee, last month sued the man responsible for the wreck that killed her daughter. Frederick Poust III was charged with reckless driving and had to pay a $50 fine.
Pena is now advocating that cell phone use in vehicles be banned on a national basis. “It’s too late for my daughter, but I feel compelled to lobby for my baby and for other people’s babies,” Pena told the Associated Press.
The safety issue potentially has enormous implications for the mobile phone, Internet and automotive industries.
Increasingly, car manufacturers are teaming up with mobile phone and Internet firms to build digital communications devices into vehicles.
Indeed, at January’s auto show in Detroit, General Motors announced a partnership with America Online, and Ford Motor Co. hooked up with Yahoo!.
The proliferation of digital devices in cars follows a growing trend in which wireless and Net technologies are becoming mainstays of everyday life for Americans.
But there is fear that if digital devices in cars become a serious safety problem, Congress could intervene.
The wireless industry would rather that not happen.
“We continue to be consistent in our educational efforts,” said Christina Martin, a spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Martin said CTIA promotes safe driving through advertising and other means that reach many of the 84 million U.S. mobile phone consumers.
The Associated Press and Automotive News contributed to this report.
