Rambling about automobile crash data and cellphone distraction

By On October 4, 2011 · 26 Comments

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How often do bicyclists get involved with crashes because of cellphone distraction? See the table below. And how many crashes are caused by the bicyclist being distracted by a cellphone? We won’t and don’t know. 

The Chicago City Council will vote tomorrow on ordinance 02011-7146 to add a new section in Chapter 9 of the Municipal Code of Chicago: “9-52-110 Use of communication devices while operating a bicycle.”

In a Chicago Sun-Times article today, Matthew Tobias, the Chicago Police Department’s deputy chief of Area 3 patrol, reported on the number of citations that the department has issued to drivers in violation of the cellphone ban: “from 2,577 administrative violations in 2008 to 10,920 in 2009 and 19,701 last year” (known as “citations issued” in the table below).

I looked at the crash data to see how many crashes were coded as having been caused by “Distraction – operating an electronic communication device (cell phone, texting, etc)”.

Out of 274,488 recorded crashes in 2008, 2009, and 2010, there were 331 crashes which had a Cause 1 or Cause 2 of ”Distraction – operating an electronic communication device (cell phone, texting, etc)”. The table below compares the rates of crashes to the rates of citations issued and the number of crashes that the police noted were caused by cellphone distraction. It also shows the number of these “cellphone distraction” crashes that involved bicyclists and pedestrians.

Year Citations issued Automobile crashes Cellphone distraction crashes % of cellphone distraction crashes Involved with bicyclists? Involved with pedestrians? National VMT (billions)*
2008 2577 111,701 91 0.081 3 10 2973.47
2009 10920 81,982 130 0.159 1 7 2979.39
2010 19701 80,805 110 0.136 6 8 2999.97

Maybe this data shows that the increased enforcement is causing fewer crashes?
However data for cyclists’ involvement in crashes and their cellphone use WON’T BE recorded unless there’s a rule change as the cause is only recorded for the vehicle involved in the crash, and bicycles are devices, not vehicles.

None involved fatalities.

*Yep, that’s 2 thousand billion. Read it like this, 2 trillion 973 billion and 470 million. VMT data from Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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  • The Flint Skinny

    It would be nearly impossible to collect data on bicycle crashes because the vast majority aren’t reported. Car rides into a pole…report. Bike rides into a pole… embarrassment, but no report.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      The crashes that are NOT collected are bicyclist v. bicyclist and bicyclist v. pedestrian. The Chicago Police Department doesn’t like to give out crash reports (I asked) and the Illinois Crash Report won’t accept bicyclist v. bicyclist or bicyclist v. pedestrian. 

      • Sebastian Baptiste Huydts

        Does the CPD state a reason as to why they cannot share data? Shouldn’t that be public information?

        • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

          Because they don’t have the time (or knowledge) to perform such a search. Also, such a search would be “unreasonable” in accordance with FOIA law and they don’t have to perform it. 

          The same is true for bike thefts. They would have to search through the narratives to find it – bike thefts are not coded and this is due to FBI crime reporting standards. If the FBI created a code for bike thefts, then the Chicago Police would start applying that code to reports of bike thefts and thus the database could be easily searched. 

          • Sebastian Baptiste Huydts

            Boy, it takes the FBI to do petty stuff? That does not seem helpful to gather arguments for the need to turn around the way personal transportation is organized in C. I thought I had started to understand how things work here (after 20 years of residence), but as an expatriate Dutch some of these things remain bizarre. BTW—love reading your and John Green’s blog! Saw some of your photo stream too, and noticed you had been to Europe. Here’s to hoping you can get some of the good things they do over there right here to Chicago.

          • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

            There’s a culture and attitude issue that I think needs to be overcome. The culture and attitude is that those who own or control the dissemination of data don’t realize its potential uses and abstain from releasing it. The Open Government and Open Data efforts are trying to convince government workers that it is not their place to question or worry about the usefulness of data and to release it to the public; information that identifies individuals should be stripped. 

            I’m writing an article now about data and the CTA’s Bus Tracker. 

  • Anonymous

    VMT = “Vehicle Miles Traveled”?

    Why are national VMT stats mixed with local crash stats?

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      To show a possible link between how many times we crash our cars and how much (by distance) we drive. 

      If I knew Illinois’s or Chicago’s VMT, I would have included that instead.

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  • Leroy

    What is the status of this legislation now?