The Cell Phone Buffer Zone

So I was in my automobile stopped at a red light looking at the car next to me. I noticed the driver of the automobile next to mine had her head tilted slightly forward as if her gaze were fixed on a point near the bottom of her steering wheel. I have recently noticed a lot of driver heads tilting slightly forward...and this tilting seems to be growing as a percentage of total driver heads. It used to be that at most stop lights driver heads sort of gazed in a daydream at some object in the distance.

It then dawned on me that the driver heads were fiddling with their cell phones. There are many applications for cell phones and an increasing number of ways to spend your time with one...in addition to calls....you can email...text message...and cruise the Internet...all while driving. It also seems to me that this head tilting is causing traffic to move more slowly...drivers are distracted by their head tilting and tend to require more time to press on their accelerators when the traffic light changes from red to green. It also seems to me that the tilted head has a tendency while his car is in motion to keep his foot near or on the brake more frequently....providing a physical buffer zone between himself and other traffic.....while his head is tilted down...I am pretty sure this is happening...

So here is the theory....I feel like I am seeing fewer automotive accidents in my home town (Houston) and that this trend may be connected to everyone driving around with a little buffer zone around them. The graphic below reflects the incidence of fatalities in Harris County between the period 2001 and 2005 (per 100,000 residents). Guess what....the population of residents is going up, the absolute number of traffic fatalities is going down...and thus the rate of fatalities per 100,000 residents is going down year after year.

Did we suddenly decide to become safer drivers...I doubt it...We Houstonians are not very defensive drivers. Are vehicles safer than they used to be?...Yes. Can this account for the repeated declines in fatalities since 2001? At least some of it...

Something is causing a sustained decrease in annual rate of automotive fatalities...the contrarian in me wonders if it has something to do with the cell-phone buffer zone. Wouldn't that be phenomenal?


Hey man...I need my space...