On Mon, 17 Aug 2015 08:46:26 +0100, "Gareth Magennis"
wrote:
Well it may not be a sound logic to assume that 1.5% is a "small" number.
Stand at the side of a motorway and count 100 cars passing. It won't take
long.
These statistics simply show that 1.5 of those passing cars contains a
driver on the phone, and that this number has not increased since 2003.
One such study simply counted the number of people that drove by with
BlueGoof headsets screwed into their ear and simply assumed that if
they were wearing the headset, they must be talking while driving. A
few of my friends wear theirs almost full time, because they don't
want to fumble for the headset while moving.
My guess(tm) is that the number of cellphone using drivers, in heavy
traffic, is much higher. From cell phone provider logs and
statistical summaries, it's known that cell phone use tends to follow
traffic congestion patterns with peaks during the rush hour. I can
see the increased "hash" in the 850/1900 MHz bands on my service
monitor during rush hour. (My office is near a major freeway
exchange). The assumption is that most of the calls come from drivers
either on the freeways, or the nearby roads, both of what are
typically barely moving. I wanted to do a time lapse video showing
the effect, but my IFR-1500 currently has a very sick power supply.
The problem is that in heavy traffic (rush hour), the traffic isn't
moving very fast. The opportunity to do some real damage or produce a
fatality is quite limited. At worst, a minor rear-end fender bender.
The fatalities seem to be more on the open highways, uncrowded
streets, and intersections, where traffic is light and moving at
considerable speed. Counting cars in such situation will probably
yield considerably less than the claimed 1.5% simply because there far
fewer automobiles. Therefore, I would guess(tm) that the 1.5% is an
average between congested traffic with high cell phone use, and light
traffic with light cell phone use.
If someone counted distracted cell phone drivers that are driving fast
enough to do some real damage (e.g. 25 mph), methinks the percentages
will be very low. Yet those are the ones that are going to kill
innocent people or themselves.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558