From laptops to sex, drivers have more distractions

By SCOTT GUTIERREZ
P-I REPORTER

We've all seen them, drivers texting, reading or even plugging away on a laptop. Maybe we've even been them.

Cell phones are only the beginning.

"Anything you can do at home, people do it in their car," said Washington State Patrol Trooper Jeff Merrill. "The longer our commutes are, the more people are trying to come up with ways to get more productive in their cars."

In Washington, troopers are seeing more people commit traffic violations because they were distracted by their dashboard global navigation systems or laptops in the front seat, he said.

In-car monitors and laptops enable occupants to play video games inside the vehicle. Trooper Tim Hanson said he once stopped a vehicle with several occupants in the back seat playing video games from a system installed in the center console -- equipped with several controllers. They had distracted the driver.

Dave Suchon, who commutes from Bothell to work in downtown Seattle, said his main distraction is changing a CD. He uses a Bluetooth headset and doesn't make calls while driving.

He's not surprised to hear that more and more people are trying to use their laptops while driving.

"Which is frightening, considering the number of people who have laptops and how easy it is to get wireless. In the future, I anticipate that getting worse as people are able to wirelessly connect to the Internet anywhere," he said.

While Washington lawmakers aren't yet considering traffic laws banning devices beyond cell phones, researchers are starting to analyze the impact of having so many new technologies available in vehicles, said Lowell Porter, director of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and former State Patrol chief.

"There is growing concern about overloading drivers with technologies that create a distraction and are going to lower their efficiencies," Porter said.

Between 2001 and 2005, distracted or drowsy drivers contributed to 971 fatal crashes, according to the state safety commission. However, police and traffic safety officials think the number may be underreported. Much of the data rely on interviews with surviving drivers, who may not have been honest about their behavior before the accident.

Cell phones were a small percentage of the contributing factors reported in recent crash statistics. But again, officials think the number could be higher.

Last November, a driver on a cell phone struck and killed Tatsuo Nakata, a City Council aide, as he was using a West Seattle crosswalk. The driver, Ephraim Schwartz, was charged with assault. His lawyer has said the phone was not a distraction.

This year, Washington became one of several states to ban using cell phones while driving, unless used with a "hands-free" device. The law, along with another that bans text messaging while driving, takes effect July 1. The new law makes the offense secondary, meaning police would first have to cite the offender for another violation.

Several states are considering more steps to reduce driver distractions, including bans on drivers playing video games, and using faxes or e-mail.

But Steve Lind, deputy director of the state safety commission, doesn't think the Legislature will consider any new laws aimed at driver distractions until traffic safety officials can analyze several years of data from newer, modified police collision reports.

The reports enable law enforcement to check boxes for contributing factors such as a hand-held telecommunication device, or if a driver was adjusting the radio, reading, writing or operating another electronic device.

State law already prohibits a television or video screen in the front seat or anywhere that would divert a driver's attention.

Lind said reducing crashes caused by distracted or sleepy drivers is one of the commission's top priorities.

While drivers on cell phones seem to draw the most ire from their fellow commuters lately, there's a long list of gadgets and behaviors that most commonly take the eyes off the road, trooper Merrill said.

Troopers see people commit violations when trying to read, eat, apply makeup, change their clothes, adjust the radio, even shave.

Deborah Amsbary is just as frustrated as anyone else sharing the road with drivers who yak on cell phones and don't pay attention.

It worries her more as a new mother, especially when she pushes a stroller into a crosswalk. But motherhood can create distractions for her inside the vehicle.

"I'm now discovering with a newborn that when my child cries, I instantly want to turn around. I try not to. That's why I have mirrors in my cars, so I can try to look," said the Ballard resident, who has a 2 1/2-month-old daughter. She wishes drivers would stay focused on the road.

Then there is the occasional couple who attempt sexual activity while trying to stay in one lane. Early one morning in June, troopers stopped a naked couple driving west on Interstate 90 in Bellevue. The vehicle had swerved several times and repeatedly sped up or slowed down, which caught the trooper's attention.

The 19-year-old man and his 20-year-old companion had alcohol in the back seat. Their offenses: drunken driving and the lesser-known "embracing while driving."

"Not many people know it, but you're not allowed to embrace while driving. That one has been on the books for a while," said Lind of the traffic safety commission. "I've been here for 18 years, and it was the standing joke when I got here."

For teens, the biggest distractions are having their friends in the car, Lind said. That's why state lawmakers enacted the Intermediate Driver's License law for new drivers, which restricts how many passengers they can transport during the first year of having their license. Since the law took effect, the number of fatal and disabling collisions involving 16- and 17-year-olds has dropped 41 percent.

The cell phone law faced fierce political opposition for years, mostly from those who believed it was intrusive and unnecessary, given that so many other driver behaviors can be just as dangerous.

Washington State Department of Transportation data from 2006 show that distractions inside vehicles were 5 percent of the contributing factors reported in crashes statewide.

Cell phones were less than 1 percent of factors reported. Speeding, however, made up 19 percent of contributing circumstances.

But a recent study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that 80 percent of crashes involved driver inattention within three seconds before the crash. Reaching for a cell phone or applying makeup increased the risk of a crash threefold.

Lind said distractions could be underreported in collision data because they rely on self-reporting when a police officer was not able to observe the behavior.

"If the officer doesn't observe it and they aren't honest, who's going to say they were doing something they shouldn't have been doing?" he said.