Short-Celling the Public

Troubling allegations have surfaced over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s handling of research and warnings about the safety of cell phone use by drivers. Main Street insurance agents and the industry in general, should be angry.

Recently, The Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen unveiled documents obtained through a public records request that showed how the NHTSA deliberately held secret research about the danger of using cell phones in a car. That information was kept under wraps, according to the documents and interviews with former agency officials, out of fear of angering some members of Congress, and jeopardizing billions in federal financing for infrastructure.

The documents, which dated from late 2002 and early 2003, showed that cell phone use was a growing distraction to drivers, and that driver distraction contributed to about one out of four police-reported traffic crashes. Draft recommendations from NHTSA even suggested “drivers not use these devices when driving except in an emergency.” Privately, the agency scuttled legislation requiring hands-free devices, which failed to address the true danger of cell phones — talking on the phone, as opposed to merely holding it — and could lead drivers to think hands-free is safer.

In the seven years that elapsed since these documents were written, the country has seen a massive growth in cell phone use, not to mention ineffective state legislation. In 2007, the NHTSA estimated that, at any given moment, 1 million drivers were using their cell phones in the United States. That number is growing, and state laws have failed to keep that growth in check.

That the nation’s chief safety agency deliberately turned its back on its obligation to make these dangers known is outrageous. That it was done to pacify the elected leaders of the nation is equally so.

Why should agents be irked? Implicit in the insurance business is the idea that profits increase as safety does, too: This is why a safe driver is sought after by insurers, while a risky one is anathema. Studies show drivers on cell phones maneuver erratically as drunks, and only a fool would willingly insure one of those.

Cell phones pose the largest systemic risk to insuring drivers, cars and property on American roads. They represent huge potential losses for insurers and decreasing their use should be a goal shared across the industry.

That’s not even saying a thing about the thousands injured or killed each year in accidents involving drivers on cell phones — unquantifiable losses which stem from our culture’s willingness to favor convenience over safety, even at someone else’s expense.

It’s apparently that same willingness that found a home at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.