Mobile phones don't cause car crashes | expert

Australia has the toughest fines for drivers caught using mobile phones, but one study claims the law might be causing crashes as drivers get more distracted when they try to hide their devices.

A Ford technology expert has controversially claimed that mobile phones are NOT causing an increase in car crashes.

The comments come after a US study speculated that bans on mobile phones may cause crashes -- because drivers try to hide them from view, forcing them to look down in their laps rather than holding their device at eye level so they can see the road.

Jeff Greenburg, Ford's senior technical leader for "human machine interface" told international media at a conference at Ford's Detroit headquarters overnight: "there is no distracted driving epidemic".

"If you look at a lot of the stories in the media, you would believe there is an epidemic related to driver distraction," said Mr Greenburg.

They just make you a bad citizen

"But in fact crash rates have been declining for well over a decade (yet) over the same period of time the number of (mobile phones) has increased exponentially. And so the epidemic of crashes that we might expect, we don't really see reflected in the data, and that's really puzzling to a lot of researchers."

Mr Greenburg said drivers are "actually reasonably good judges about whether they have spare capacity (to use their phones)".

Even though Mr Greenburg admitted that drivers using their mobile phones could make "mental errors" such as "missing an exit" or "they may miss stop signs", he said "going slower and not changing lanes are actually safety positive behaviours...they actually reduce the number of crashes; they just make you a bad citizen because you're doing it in the wrong way."

Mr Greenburg added: "We all see the distracted driver, going slow and you go past and you look and they're on the phone. But...there is a difference between driving unsafely and driving like a jerk."

When asked by News Corp Australia if police should not write tickets for drivers using mobile phones, Mr Greenburg said: "That's a great policy question and Ford doesn't have a position on it but...communities have done hyper enforcement of anti-texting laws (and) it's been really hard to find a correlation between hyper enforcement and reduced crash rates."

Inspector Phil Brooks of the NSW Police Traffic and Highway Patrol disputed the claim that mobile phones don't cause crashes.

"There is absolutely no question that using a mobile phone while driving is dangerous and, sadly, we have evidence of mobile phones being the likely cause of some fatal crashes," said Inspector Brooks.

In December 2012, 20-year-old Brooke Richardson crashed at 100km/h near Cobram on the NSW-Victoria border moments after sending a text message.

The coroner found she dropped the phone, bent down to pick it up and swerved to the wrong side of the road and hit a tree.

The death came one month after the NSW Government launched its "Get Your Hands Off It" campaign.

The Australian fines for using a phone while driving are among the toughest in the world

In August 2013, 26-year-old Sarah Durazza died after crashing her car into a tree on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Her boyfriend told police he was talking to her on her mobile phone at the time of the incident, and heard the impact.

Victoria has the highest fines in Australia for using a mobile phone while driving -- $433 and four demerit points -- while most other states issue drivers with tickets costing about $300 and three demerit points. The Australian fines are among the toughest in the world.

However, a 2010 study conducted by North America's Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after 30 US states introduced bans on mobile phone use found the strict new laws led to an increase in crashes.

"This unexpected consequence of banning texting suggests that texting drivers have responded to the law, perhaps by attempting to avoid fines by hiding their phones from view," the report said.

"If this causes them to take their eyes off the road more than before the ban, then the bans may make texting more dangerous rather than eliminating it."

However, a more recent study by the same IIHS organisation, conducted in 2014, has since found using a mobile phone while driving increases the risk of a crash by 17 per cent.

After the conference, Ford's technology expert clarified his remarks regarding police enforcement of mobile phone use.

None of this means that it's safe to text and drive

"That's not to say that (enforcement) can't work or that it's the wrong approach, it's just that right now the data is pretty weak linking hyper enforcement (of mobile phone use) to reducing crash rates," said Mr Greenburg.

Mr Greenburg also added: "None of this means that it's safe to text and drive. Taking your eyes off the road is clearly linked to an increase in crash involvement. What these studies do show is that the traffic system is extremely complex, effects often don't show up in simple ways and simplistic attempts to change behaviour can have unintended consequences."