- LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- The
role that cell phones may have played in California traffic accidents last
year appeared to be underestimated to the point that a report on the issue
compiled for the state Legislature was recently pulled back so that the
statistics could be double-checked, it was reported Sunday.
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- The Los Angeles Times said that the California Highway
Patrol decided to withdraw the pending report after a closer look indicated
that some police agencies may have underreported the number of traffic
accidents in their jurisdictions that involved cell phone use.
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- "Without a doubt, there's something wrong there,"
CHP Commissioner Spike Helmick informed the newspaper. "Clearly the
numbers do not look right, nor do I think they are right."
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- The report was prepared to assist lawmakers in deciding
whether or not to require drivers statewide to use a "hands-free"
device such as a headset when talking on the phone so that they will be
able to keep both hands on the wheel while driving. Such laws are already
in effect in New York and 22 nations, and are being considered by California
and several other states.
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- The report originally chalked up 913 accidents during
the final nine months of 2001 in which the investigating officer determined
that the driver's use of a phone was directly responsible for the crash;
of those, 423 accidents resulted in injuries and three involved a fatality.
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- The Times, however, did its own analysis of the data
and found that the total number of accidents during the same time period
in which the responsible driver was talking on the phone was nearly 4,700.
Some of the discrepancy appeared to be linked to apparent failures by some
agencies to list all accidents caused by cell phones.
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- Lt. Karl Schuler of the Costa Mesa Police Department,
whose accident investigators reported more drivers distracted by cell phones
than every other police jurisdiction in the state, scoffed at the lower
figures reported by other much larger cities.
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- "In all of Los Angeles, there were only 28 accidents
blamed on cell phone inattention last year, while we had 60 in Costa Mesa,"
Schuler said. "Come on. I can guarantee you that in ... these other
big cities, there were a lot more (accidents) than what they're showing
up with. It is probably because the officers weren't putting it on their
reports."
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- Helmick said he had at first thought the problem of cell
phone distraction was not widespread enough to mandate the use of headsets
or speakers, however he has since had second thoughts on the safety issue.
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- "I have changed my view, after looking at the data,"
he decided. "I was absolutely amazed at how high the cellular phone
accident rate was. There is an easy fix for this, and that is requiring
equipment that would make it hands-free."
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
rights reserved.
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