Just got off the phone with Kara Phillips, spokesman for Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.
She said the numbers for crashes involving cell phones are skewed because drivers don't admit to the officer that they were on the cell phone at the time.
"The numbers we have are by admission only," she said.
Phillips said cell phones are usually not the main cause of an accident anyway. A driver can look down at a cell phone, she said, look up and try to swerve to miss colliding with a car or object in the road. The driver will often overcorrect and have an accident.
"It just causes a chain of events," Phillips said.
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1 comment:
Baxter:
I get her point, but I don't think it undermines the thesis. It might even help:
She's saying the number of cell phone crashes is underreported by OHP because it's voluntary. That's the same as saying the problem is actually worse then OHP's numbers suggest.
I don't think her observation about other causes holds up well. If a driver looks at his cell phone, then has to swerve because he wasn't keeping his eye on the road, it sounds to me like the crash was caused by the cell phone use, not by a bad driving maneuver.
Warren
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