Critics Question Safety of Cellular Phone Use
Add a new one, alas, to the standard freeway tales of people reading newspapers, shaving, putting on makeup, or drinking coffee at 55 m.p.h.: They may also be talking on the phone--probably one of the new cellular car phones advertised as the quick way “into the fast lane.” “They’re hot now because the quality is so good,” a phone company executive says, “and because those people already have a Cuisinart, pasta-maker, microwave, and cordless phone.”
They’re also drawing some criticism from fellow travelers, who ask if there isn’t some law against that kind of distracted, one-handed driving, something beside the general laws about driving safely and with due care. They want something specific--such as California’s law against driving with stereo headsets that cover both ears--and they want it now, before car phones are ubiquitous.
The new “cellular” phones aren’t as limited as the old radio phones, which transmitted over the few available airwave frequencies, thus permitting only a dozen conversations at once in any city. Today’s mobile systems use a network of geographic “cells” within a service area, each with its own transmitter, with customers passed imperceptibly from transmitter to transmitter as they drive across town. Multiple callers can thus use the same radio frequency simultaneously.
As a result, a tiny market may expand considerably. The FCC has already granted licenses in 90 cities--two per city--although only 50 of the 180 licensees are actually operating. Still, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assn. estimates that there will be 200,000 subscribers by year-end and 1.5 million by 1990.
Not a Mass Market
This is no mass market, given equipment costing from $1,500 to $2,500 installed with another few hundred for a “hands-free” speaker and microphone. Monthly service costs the average subscriber almost $200--about $35 for “access,” $5 for extra calling features, and $150 for call time--45 cents per minute from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and 27 cents from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. from PacTel Mobile Access in Southern California, the country’s largest market (30,000 subscribers).
At those rates, cellular phones are almost always business-charged and tax-deducted, although contrary to developing myth, subscribers are rarely cutting big deals out there in the fast lane. They’re making the same little calls (under three minutes) as everyone does, one phone official says, “calling home, or their secretary, or their next appointment, or asking ‘How do I get there.”’
As prices come down, subscribers will increase, and some people are already questioning whether we really want our public freeways treated like a private “office away from the office,” as one ad says. Although there aren’t yet any accident statistics, there are observations on the danger of car phones: “I was about to step off the curb,” says one Californian, “when this twerp in a silver Porsche whizzed around the corner with a phone in his ear and his mouth flapping, and it’s good I saw him because he sure wasn’t looking for me.”
The question is whether car phones, like stereo headsets, deserve to be singled out. Of all the tasks commonly performed while driving, motorists in an oft-cited Bell Labs study rated map-reading 8.75 on a scale of difficulty from 1 to 10, while dialing a mobile phone got 4.5--less than lighting and smoking a cigarette (5.5), but more than tuning a radio (3.5) or simply talking on the phone (1.5).
Focus on Dialing
Many people focus on the dialing, pointing out that safety questions never came up with citizen-band radios, or with police or taxi systems, whose two-way radios require neither dialing nor receivers held to the ear. Others think talk itself is dangerous. “Other things are task-oriented--lighting cigarettes, finding stations--but a telephone conversation,” says Paul Fadelli, aide to state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), “can take away your train of thought.”
The industry responds that cellular users are actually safer drivers, being more affluent and careful about their cars. According to Telocator Network of America, another trade association, only 4% of mobile phone users had a traffic accident in the past year (compared to 8% of the general driving public)--although 31% of those were using the phone at the time.
What’s more, “cellular is a safety enhancer,” says Linda Bonniksen, speaking for PacTel Mobile Access. People can call for help without leaving their cars, and can report accidents, chemical spills, erratic drivers, and other scofflaws.
Many industry members disseminate safety guides (don’t dial unless stopped, or dial two digits at a time, looking up between dialings to check traffic, pull over or use a tape recorder to make notes). Many also urge use of “hands-free” phone systems, but with mixed success: many buyers prefer hand-held instruments “because people can see you,” Fadelli says. “When you’re talking into your sun visor, they just think you’re talking to yourself.”
Partly out of self-concern, the industry is making “a bona fide effort to address the (safety) problem before there is a problem, “ says Mike McIntyre at the American Automobile Assn. headquarters in Virginia. “I’m not aware of any case in which a car phone manufacturer has been held liable or even accused of liability (because of an accident),” says Marvin Cohen, attorney for the CTIA in Washington. “But product liability is a developing field of law, and it may be possible in the future.”
There may by then be laws on the product’s use, if state legislators decide it can’t just be left to driver judgment. Right now, everyone’s watching California, where Rosenthal has proposed a resolution asking for a study of safety in mobile phone use, to be delivered in July, 1986. Until then, the fast lane’s open.
