WASHINGTON-The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to hold a series of meetings beginning in July on digital driver distractions, like mobile phones, that local, state and federal officials fear will lead to more traffic accidents as well as injuries and deaths to drivers and passengers.
NHTSA officials were reluctant to release any details, only saying they will hold more than one symposium beginning in July.
NHTSA, a unit of the Transportation Department, planned a meeting on digital distractions last October but canceled it following public comment.
Studies published in 1997 by NHTSA and the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that talking on a mobile phone while driving can increase the chance of a crash.
The cell phone driver safety issue gained national attention following the death last November of Morgan Lee Pena, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl killed in a collision caused by a man dialing his cell phone in Hilltown, Pa. Local authorities in Hilltown and a handful of other communities have passed laws banning mobile-phone talking while driving, although there are exemptions for hands-free devices.
But NHTSA officials are not convinced that hands-free devices are the answer. They say the key dynamic at work is driver concentration, something that can be interrupted even when the driver’s hands are on the steering wheel.
More than 20 states have considered various limits on mobile-phone talking while driving, but no state legislature yet has passed such a bill.
“The increasing utilization of certain advanced technologies in automobiles brings both the promise of safety enhancement and concerns about safety compromises due to the potential of crash causation,” NHTSA stated in last November’s public notice.
In recent years, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has funded an advertising campaign to emphasize driver safety.
But NHTSA is concerned about more than just mobile phones.
Internet firms are working with automobile manufacturers to provide e-mail and World Wide Web content via wireless technology.
Last Thursday, General Motors Corp. announced it will offer voice-activated Internet service in two models of 2001 Cadillacs. The digital package in Seville and DeVille sedans will include e-mail, navigation and CD-ROM and an infrared port.
Sprint PCS is working with Ford Motor Co. to provide wireless data services in vehicles as well.
