Is hands-free cellphone use really safer for driving? We asked MythBusters. - The Washington Post

Conventional wisdom — and the law in many states — says that using a Bluetooth device is safer
than hands-on when using your cellphone while driving. Others contend there is no difference.
So, which is true? Well, who better to put the claim to the test than the trusted duo of debunkery: the MythBusters.

Hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman weighed the claim during an August episode of their popular Discovery Channel show. They tested the myth that it’s no safer for drivers to talk using a hands-free device than it is to drive with a handheld phone to their ear. It was part of an episode dedicated to dangerous driving, a practical topic for a show known for over-the-top demonstrations and, well, explosions.

“We get asked all the time to make the point of what the most dangerous thing we do on the show is,” said Hyneman, who once attached rockets to a car and watched it disappear in a fiery ball of smoke, in an interview. “The most dangerous stunt is on the road going to or from the actual experiment.
“You get in this metal box at these ridiculous speeds, aimed at these other metal boxes going in the other directions at similar speeds, being driven by, for all you know, crazy people,” he added. “If we were doing an experiment that required that, if not for the fact that we’re used to it, it would not pass our safety requirements.”

Cellphones, the hosts said, are an added hazard to an already-dangerous stunt. In an earlier episode, Savage performed worse in a driving test while talking hands-free on a cellphone than when the testers drove drunk. But the hosts wanted to see whether it was any safer to use a hands-free device.
“I think it’s a cultural bias that hands-free must be better,” Savage said.

All it took was an elaborate 360-degree virtual driving simulator (hooked up to a real car) at Stanford University. They populated the virtual world with hazards — pedestrians, bicycles, dogs darting into the street.

In an earlier maneuverability test, Hyneman had scored an atrocious 66 out of 100 while using a hands-free device. Savage, using a handset, scored a 73.

But the Stanford test was the one that effectively removed all doubt. Savage compared it to driving in his neighborhood in San Francisco’s Mission District.

“You’ve got cars, bikes, scooters, electric scooters, electric bikes, hipsters, dogs…probably electric hipsters,” he said.

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Is hands-free cellphone use really safer for driving? We asked MythBusters. - The Washington Post