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How Dangerous is Driving with a Cell Phone? Less Than You Think

Suzanne just wrote about the new Minnesota ban on texting while driving, and that reminded me of economics paper I recently read.
Two University of California, Berkeley graduate student economists did what’s called a natural experiment about cell phone usage and auto accidents, which means they used observations in the real world instead of in a controlled laboratory. Saurabh Bargrava and Vikram Pathania came to the conclusion that the quick rise in cell phone usage in recent years is not matched by an increase in fatal or non-fatal car crashes. This goes against everything you’ve probably heard, but they back it up with some very awesome facts. And a 54 page economics paper.

Check it, yo:
…we document a 20-30% rise in cellular call volume during the time of the day– 9pm on weekdays– when cell phone providers systematically transition from “peak” to “off-peak” pricing. We then measure the resulting increase in fatal and non-fatal crashes during this period as compared to weekends and earlier periods which serve as controls. We find no evidence for a rise in crashes, and estimate small positive upper bounds for the effect size at 9pm (~1% for all crashes, and 2.4% for fatal crashes).

We confirm our results with three additional empirical approaches—we compare trends in cell phone ownership and crashes across areas of contiguous economic activity over time, investigate whether differences in urban versus rural crash rates mirror identified gaps in urban-rural cellular ownership, and finally estimate the impact of legislation banning driver cell phone use on crash rates. None of the additional analyses produces evidence for a positive link between cellular use and vehicle crashes.

This paper is probably the single most comprehensive cell phone and driving experiment paper I have ever read. And I’ve read 1.
Seriously though, this paper is damn thorough. Thorough and surprising.

the related press release

Obscure Burglary Tools of the Day: Ninja Rocks

Ninja rocks are small bits of the ceramic from spark plugs, used by crackheads and jerkoffs to break any of the tempered glass on a car (anything except the windshield). Usually the door glass.

All your average crackhead needs to do to make some ninja rocks is to find a spark plug and smash the ceramic insulator part into about 1/2 to 1/4 inch bits. Then they just need to throw them at a car door glass and steal the 2 dollars in quarters and red Phillies hat from off of my seat while I’m eating Pho in the Vietnamese place. I hate crackheads.

What makes the whole thing so bizarre is that the ninja rocks don’t feel like they could break anything, they’re extremely light. A rock of similar size off the ground wouldn’t do it, but ninja rocks do. Why?

It has to do with hardness. Glass is actually “harder” than iron on the Mohs scale, and spark plug ceramic (technically called “aluminium oxide ceramic”) is much harder than glass. Aluminium oxide ceramic actually rates a 9 on the Mohs scale; diamonds are 10, glass is 6.5, and iron is 4.5. That’s the key to the whole thing, and why it’s surprisingly hard to break a window with a hammer and surprisingly easy to break it with a small, light little shard of innocent white spark plug ceramic.

And so, in conclusion, ninja rocks are interesting, and the next time you see a freaky little crackhead running around Philadelphia with a red Phillies hat and a bunch of broken little ceramic shards, run him over once for me.

How To Rebuild The Republican Party: Truck Nutz For All! [Novelties]

With the RNC licking its wounds and contemplating strategies that will help them win back lost political ground, it only makes sense that they'd turn to this here newfangled internet thingy to try to get some ideas. The folks at Rebuild The Party decided to seek reader input to finish the statement "The next RNC Chairman should…" and (as of the time of this writing) the answer "Give all Red Blooded Americans a pair of Truck Nutz for their F150s!" is leading by a landslide, crushing a bunch of confusing eggheaded ideas about the Bill Of Rights and fiscal policy. Oh, sure, some might call it Truck Nutz Socialism, but drastic measures are needed!