[The Economist] After three words: The last generation of drink driving was distracted by the new generation.

The driver of Jennifer Smith's mother who was driving into the car in 2008, did not drink and never received a speeding ticket, but when the accident happened, he was talking about a cell phone.

Many people think that in this era, "Drive distraction" is equivalent to the last generation's "drunken drive".This is why, in the United States, April is the "distracted driving awareness month", and the police will be more and more careful in the month of this month.

From the 1970s, through the enactment of laws, educational awareness and socio-cultural changes, the situation of drunken driving has decreased significantly, and traffic accidents have dropped significantly (and, of course, there are other reasons, such as safer sex, and limitations on the speed of seatbelts and so on).

On the contrary, the drive distraction continues to increase.There are too many things to distract the driver's attention from the child to the food and even the radio.The biggest risk is the mobile phone, which is the most deadly.

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When speaking to people who are not in front of sight, human brains need more effort to work (distractions from the distractions of passengers are greatly reduced compared to using mobile phones, as passengers will also adjust the content of the conversation at the same time as the traffic conditions).According to research by Carnegie Mellon University, the use of mobile phones to hear people's speech reduces 37 % of the active power of the top of the brain that is in charge of the concept of space, so using a stethoscope does not have much help in safety.At the edge of the car, it is more than four times the risk of driving a mobile phone, or even after drinking a little alcohol, which is more than four times higher than the alcohol concentration in the United States when the alcohol concentration is 0.8 %.And the risk is several times higher than text messaging.

In 2009, traffic accidents accounted for 16 % and 20 % of accidents in traffic accidents.Unsurprisingly, the most at risk groups are teenagers.But this statistic is actually undervalued, as few drivers acknowledge their use of mobile phones, and the police rarely have access to mobile phone records.

With regard to the legal requirements for the use of mobile phones, different regions are very different.In 1999, Japan became the first country to ban the use of mobile phones while driving, and other countries, large and small, followed suit one after another.The US has not kept up with this trend.In 2001, New York was the first state to enact a similar law, while dozens of other states were banned from short messages on the side of the road.

In fact, these laws are difficult to enforce, for example, the police must directly see the driving being texting (rather than simply bowing), which is a difficult thing to do on the freeway.Therefore, our greatest hope is that, like drink driving, we will gradually establish a culture of compliance with the passing of time.Technology is also helpful, and Google has been testing autopias and automatically avoiding unexpected cars.But at the same time, as in the case of drunken driving, the distraction of the drive must also become a "very uncool, completely unacceptable" thing, especially among teenagers.(Extended reading: I can't lie, but my mobile phone can )