Why is hands free phone use still legal?

We have all seen it whether you are sat on a bus looking in at the cars on your commute to work or driving along the road or waiting at traffic lights in your own vehicle. People looking at their mobile phones and in the last few years it has moved away from calls and texts but more to check facebook, video yourself for an instagram story/snapchat. In NZ the law states its ok as long as its all handsfree but it got me thinking how much safer is hands free in this day in age where there is the temptation to access social media, messaging apps and the old school texts and calls.

In 2009 New Zealand law made it illegal for drivers to use a hand held mobile phone while driving. The road rules states that drivers cannot use a mobile phone:

• to make, receive, or terminate a telephone call
• to create, send, or read a text message or email
• to create, send, or view a video message 
• to communicate in a similar way
• in any other way.

Breaching this law incurs a fine of only $80 and 20 demerit points. In the UK fines start from ￡200 (~$400) and 6 penalty points if you use a hand-held phone when driving. You’ll also lose your licence if you passed your driving test in the last 2 years. However these fines can go up to ￡1000 (~$2000) if the case goes to court. So you can see how insignificant the NZ fine is to the UK's fines. The laws are similar around the world governments and their transport agencies agree that handling a mobile while driving is dangerous and distracting and is likely to lead to fatal or serious incidents. What they also agree on is that driving using hands free technology is legal and fine. So thanks to a few converstaions I have had and listened to in the last few weeks i started to think is hands free driving actually safer and where is the evidence for this being safer?

In 2017, 378 people died on NZ roads and is an increasing trend over the last few years. The latest statistics for NZ (from 2017) show that distracted driving resulted in 40 deaths from the 378, 240 serious injuries and 1187 minor injuries. While these stats also include other distractions such as changing radio channel, food and drink and other passengers I would bet most of these incidents were the result of being distracted by a phone. It also does not break down how many of these are from hands free and holding/engaging with your phone!

So what is actually defined as hands free?

• The mobile phone does not require the driver to hold or physically manipulate it to make, receive, or terminate the call (e.g. Blue Tooth technology)
• The mobile phone is secured in a mounting fixed to the vehicle and the driver manipulates the phone infrequently and briefly (e.g. hands-free kits)

On doing research and speaking to a few people around using your mobile in a hands free format the arguments are:

• The technology is there so we should make the most of it;
• Its safer to use the hands free as its the law; and
• It is just like chatting with a passenger in the car.

Sure, all valid arguments and most drivers at some point have been distracted by a the passengers they are driving around but it turns out that what the other person can see profoundly affects your likelihood of having an accident. Studies have found that, contrary to what you might think, passengers often aren’t as distracting (as long as you’re not having an argument with them). If they are also drivers they act like another set of experienced eyes on the road and can alert to driver to potential issues and dangers. So if you revert this back to hands free the person at the other end of the phone will not be able to see what hazards and issues you would be having while driving and potentially asking questions of an already challenged brain leading to loss of concentration while driving.

Just because the technology is in the vehicles does not mean we have to use it, these technologies have been put in there through demand and because it is legal in 99% of countries around the world. The car companies would be stupid to omit this from there cars and potentially lose sales to other car manufacturers. The demand from the general public for this technology is there.

The part about it being the law is definitely true but in my mind it doesn't make it right. The move to hands free is safer to an extent as both hands can then be placed on the wheel while talking but studies have shown that talking on hands free is just as distracting as holding your mobile phone in your hand. The study which was conducted by the University of Sussex has been backed up by similar studies from around the world. Everyone has been in that situation where they on hands free and because the traffic situation gets difficult we lose focus on the conversation and cant take everything in the person at the other end of the line is saying, its the same when we get asked difficult questions while we are driving we lose focus on the road.

I love this video by Mythbusters which show there is no difference between hands free and holding a phone while driving!

In a document produced by NZTA (reprinted in 2010) which helps companies produce a driving policy it speaks of research showing that hands free phone significantly decreases a drivers performance and the best practice is to switch off your phone or to put into flight mode. So our national transport agency recognises this risk as well.

So what can be done 10 years after the original legislation was passed around phone use in vehicles? The government in the last year has set an ambitious target of Zero road deaths with an improvement of roads and infrastructure as well as reducing speeds on some of NZ's high risk roads. This strategy has been long overdue with the road death toll increasing since 2013 (If I were to speculate it could be due to the increase of smart phones being present in cars?). As part of this strategy it would be good for NZ to take the lead and look at banning hands free in cars (I know controversial!). It would be difficult to enforce but police checks should be held more often around NZ to combat this massive issue that is not really spoken about as a contributing factor to NZ's road death toll. You always tend to see in the NZ Herald at least once a year (photos of distracted drivers) 90% of them will have a phone where as the odd one will have a dog or eating a three course McDonalds Meal! There would also have to be a good education piece from our transport agency to educate NZ'ers about the risks of doing this, as for the past 10 years it has been driven into us that hands free is all good.

As legislation is a lot slower moving, another way to combat this in the meantime is through the multinational tech companies such as Apple, Windows, Huawei etc. having a safety feature within their phones to recognise when the user is driving which is starting to be done across these companies. This should be an automatic setting an require the user to switch this off rather than the user engaging this feature which it currently is. It will switch off all messages and only allow certain calls to come through (from favourites) but its a step in the right direction. A reminder that most modern smart phones do have this feature and for your own safety you should look to engage this but could this be done better? They have recognised that phone addition is a thing in the last year or so but maybe they also need to realise that this addiction is being brought into the driving environment.

Whether this would change in the next few years, would be interesting to see! Would NZ or any other governments around the world take the lead to proactively drive that change; Or, could it be that these technology giants drive this change? Or are they so ingrained in our lives (or our governments) that nothing will change until we can start to point towards clear evidence (which I would say there is) or a severe national incident that forces the governments hand to change what is likely to become a bigger issue in the coming years.