Re: It's a myth that cellphone use caused the accident rate to rise in the USA

Chris wrote on Mon, 27 May 2024 13:17:56 -0000 (UTC) :

Not your cherished accident data. There's no data since 2008.

Plenty of statistics on road accidents are current, Chris.
 <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/>

The main problem is simply that the information is scattered about.
 <https://www.statista.com/topics/3708/road-accidents-in-the-us/#topicOverview>
 <https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-traffic-crash-data-fatalities>
 <https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/nhtsa-releases-2020-traffic-crash-data>

While the data is in various and sundry separate pieces...
 <https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813183>

The only bounding dates that really matter for this topic are these two:
a. When did cellphones in vehicles basically not exist.
b. When did cellphones rise nearly to saturation in vehicles.

If cellphone use were as dastardly as the claims, there should be a
meteoric rise in the accident rate during that period, right?

Where is that meteoric rise?
 <https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/pdf/fi200.pdf>

Hint: It's not there.

Take a look at the accident numbers for the entire world, by country.
 <https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm>

What do you see in those accident statistics for the time periods of
before, during, and after the meteoric rise in cellphone ownership?

Try this search, but let's stick to first-order effects, which are the
normalized accident rates, as injuries are a second-order effect for later.
 <https://www.google.com/search?q=accident+rate+usa+by+state+by+year+since+1900+to+present>

This shows normalized fatalities, which wasn't my main point, but it too is
trending the same way as the accident rate statistics were trending.
 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year>

We have to understand that the analysis gets exponentially more complex
once we delve into second-order effects such as injuries & fatalities.
 <https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/introduction/>

Simply because there are more factors involved, where cellphones can
actually decrease the fatality rate in many ways (e.g., quicker aid).
 <https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2022-traffic-deaths-2023-early-estimates>
 "The agency estimates that 40,990 people died in motor vehicle
  traffic crashes in 2023, a decrease of about 3.6% as compared
  to 42,514 fatalities reported to have occurred in 2022.
  The fourth quarter of 2023 represents the seventh consecutive
  quarterly decline in fatalities beginning with the second
  quarter of 2022."

The problem isn't finding recent data; it's finding only the accidents.
 <https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state>

Since the problem is complex enough, let's stick with first-order accidents
since there can't be second order effects of injuries without accidents.

Nobody has yet found any statistic that backs up the myth.
There's a reason for that fact.