N.Y. Troopers in Big S.U.V.’s Peer In on Texting Drivers

That's why New York has given state police 32 tall, unmarked SUVs to better peer down at drivers' hands, part of one of the nation's most aggressive attacks on texting while driving that also includes steeper penalties and dozens of highway "Texting Zones," where motorists can pull over to use their devices.

"Look at that," Trooper Clayton Howell says, pulling alongside a black BMW while patrolling the highways north of New York City. "This guy's looking down. I can see his thumb on the phone. I think we got him."

After a quick wail of the siren and a flash of the tucked-away flashers, an accountant from the suburbs is pulled over and politely given a ticket.

New York is among 41 states that ban text messaging for all drivers and is among only 12 that prohibit using hand-held cellphones. The state this year stiffened penalties for motorists caught using hand-held devices to talk or text, increasing penalty points on the driving record from three to five, along with tickets that carry fines of up to $200.

With the tough new penalties came tougher enforcement. In a two-month crackdown this summer, troopers handed out 5,553 tickets for texting while driving, compared to 924 in the same period last year.

In New York's recent push, 91 existing rest areas and turnoffs on the state Thruway and other highways have been rebranded "Texting Zones," some advertised with blue signs declaring "It can wait. Text stop 5 miles."

"To our knowledge, New York is the first," Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said of the texting turnoffs. "It's an intriguing approach and one that we think will pay dividends and be duplicated in other states."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that at any moment during daylight hours, 660,000 drivers in the United States are texting, using cellphones or otherwise manipulating electronic devices. It says more than 3,300 people were killed and 421,000 injured in crashes caused by distracted driving last year.

Major Michael Kopy, commander of the state police troop patrolling the corridor between New York City and Albany, quoted a Virginia Tech study that found texting while driving increased the chance of a collision by 23 times and took eyes off the road for five seconds — more than the length of a football field at highway speed.

Kopy worries that as teens get their driver's licenses, texting on the road will become more prevalent. "More people are coming of driving age who have had these hand-held devices for many years, and now as they start to drive, they're putting the two together, texting and driving, when they shouldn't."

Howell's SUV, called a CITE vehicle for Concealed Identity Traffic Enforcement, is designed to catch just such drivers. Mousy gray in color, it swoops in undetected when Howell suspects a violation.

"You can see how oblivious they are to this vehicle," Howell said as a woman holding a phone paid him no mind. "I'm right next to them, and they have no idea."

The driver, a doctor, said she'd been running late and was on the phone to her office. It didn't qualify as an emergency under the rules, but she got off with a warning.

The accountant who was ticketed, Chris Pecchia, of Montrose, told Howell he hadn't been texting but rather was looking at a map displayed on his phone. He was cited anyway, for driving while using a portable electronic device.

"His story's believable, but even a GPS has to be hands-free," Howell said.

Pecchia said afterward: "I can't look at a map? What's the difference between looking at a paper map and looking at a map on the phone?"

Still, he said, he understood why the trooper pulled him over. He said he would never text while driving and has forbidden his 17-year-old daughter from doing so.

Howell pulled over a registered nurse because she had earbuds in both ears. Only one earbud is permitted while driving. She got off with a warning after explaining she was listening to her GPS's turn-by-turn directions.

"I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt," Howell said. "It's my philosophy to educate, and when you pull somebody over and give them a warning, that's a pretty good education."

F1 Proving a Challenge to American Drivers

SILVERSTONE, England — As Formula One expands its reach into the United States, there's still a missing ingredient that could keep some fans away from the stands — an American driver on the grid.

There hasn't been an American in Formula One since 2007 when Scott Speed drove for Toro Rosso. But the pressure is building for an American to make the jump now that the United States successfully hosted the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, last year and is set to hold second grand prix in New Jersey as soon as 2014.

"It would be tremendous boost for Formula One to have an American driver," Mario Andretti, the Formula One champion in 1978, told The Associated Press. "It would not only be good for America but also Formula One. No question about it. The U.S. is a very powerful nation from the standpoint of the financial situation. Every company in Formula One now does business in the Unites States."

Scores of Americans have given F1 a try but few have succeeded. Andretti was the last American to win a drivers' championship title and before him it was Phil Hill in 1961. More common were the likes of Andretti's son Michael, who raced 13 grand prix races for McLaren in 1993 with a third-place finish as his best result. Speed never scored a point in the two years he raced in F1.

There was talk in 2010 of creating an American team dubbed USF1 team with strong backing from YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley and featuring Danica Patrick and possibly Speed as drivers. But USF1 struggled to attract sponsors amid the global recession and ran afoul of F1 when it didn't race in 2010.

The dearth of drivers — there are only Americans Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly in all the F1 feeders — is blamed on the a mix of cultural and financial factors. Among the biggest challenges is raising the millions needed to fund a team from American corporations that may have doubts about the benefits of investing in a sport that is not a major attraction in the U.S.

"It's extremely difficult for an American mostly because there is no American support from companies," said Speed, who now races in NASCAR and Global Rally Cross. "Why would an American company spend x amount of money in Formula One when they can get 10 times that exposure in America racing NASCAR? It makes zero sense financially."

F1 drivers and executives said it also can be difficult for an American to make the transition to F1 since they are raised on tracks and a system that grooms them for IndyCar and NASCAR rather than serpentine circuits of Europe. There also isn't the kind of support system that European drivers can count on to provide mentoring and the occasional break as they attempt to rise through the ranks of the sport.

"Formula One has flirted with North American for many years but Formula One hasn't been seen as the pinnacle of the sport in the eyes of youngster in North America. North America has evolved in a slightly different approach with things like NASCAR," said McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh, who heads the F1 teams' association. "North American doesn't have the karting program. Without exception, every single one of these (F1) drivers started at 8 or 9 in karting and went into competitive karting. Karting became the launch pad for their careers."

In the short term, Whitmarsh said prospective American drivers will have to go to Europe early on in their careers. But Andretti said the addition of two American races should help in the long-term — by inspiring more youngsters to take up the sport, providing the facilities needed to develop that talent and convincing American companies to step up their sponsorship.

Rossi and Daly have beaten the odds partly because they are not your typical American drivers. Rossi is a reserve driver for Caterham and drives for them in the series GP2 which is a notch below F1. Daly drives in a lesser, GP3 series with ART Grand Prix.

Both grew up on F1 — Rossi watching as a 6-year-old with his father — and Daly benefiting from the stories a father, Derek, who raced in F1 from 1978 to 1982. They also raced in Europe at a young age which Whitmarsh and others recommend. Rossi moved to Italy at 16 to pursue his F1 dream while the 21-year-old Daly first raced as a 16-year-old in Europe before moving there in 2011.

The duo also have the belief they will make it to F1 — emboldened by the success they have had so far. Daly won a race in Barcelona last year and again this year in Valencia and sits fifth in the GP3 standings. Rossi joined Caterham in 2011 as a test driver and was named a reserve driver this year. He then replaced Chinese reserve driver Ma Qing Hua in GP2 after the opening race in Malaysia and placed third place in Bahrain.

"When we were able to come over here and win races and qualify on pole, it justified that we can do it too. That is what has been encouraging," Daly said.

"Rossi has been great so far and he has done an awesome job and he has kind of gotten there with Caterham already," he said. "It's not just one American we want in F1. It's as many as we can get. Right now, it's just us two that at least have made it into Formula One cars and are kind of getting there."

The two also understand the significance of becoming the next American on the grid. They have already witnessed a few flag-waving Americans at European races and the kind of support that comes across Twitter and Facebook when they win races. Doing that in Austin or New Jersey, they said, would be special.

"It would mean everything not only to be an American on the grid but to be an American on the grid as Formula One starts to rebuild an audience in America," Rossi said. "The timing would be amazing."

Noting the buzz he saw for Brit Lewis Hamilton at the British GP and Spaniard Fernando Alonso at the Spanish GP, Daly said an American race needs a homegrown driver.

"In America, we have a race. Any drivers? No. Was there a good crowd? Absolutely, it's a great venue Austin and the track is incredible. But in reality, who do Americans have to cheer for?" he said. "It's like the Olympics. When you watch the Olympics, you want to see Americans do well."

With Street-Hail Service Set to Expand, Some Drivers Are Skeptical

With each one, a passenger climbed inside one of the cars waiting below an elevated subway station in the Bronx, and the car drove away. Though these street pickups by livery cabs are illegal and can carry hefty fines for the drivers, they happen so often and in so many corners of the city that they are a familiar street ritual.

But it is a tradition that may soon be upended.

In a major reshaping of New York City’s for-hire transportation industry, the city this summer is rolling out a new fleet of green taxis to expand legal street-hail service beyond Manhattan.

Elected officials and many livery company owners and drivers say it will not only ensure service for poor and minority neighborhoods where yellow taxis are rarely seen, but will also benefit livery drivers who, by converting to green taxis, need no longer look in the rearview mirror every time they make a street pickup.

But in some lines of livery cars, the very drivers the expansion aims to help expressed anger and worry. The drivers said that they eked out a meager living as it was, in neighborhoods with spotty demand and few big tippers, and that converting to a green taxi would cost them thousands of dollars they do not have and subject them to more rules.

“I don’t want it,” Pablo Camilo, 57 and a father of three, said as he waited by his gray Toyota Camry in the Bronx. “I want it to be like it is. I can’t spend money I have to spend on my family.”

To make his point, Mr. Camilo said he earned about $120 a day but estimated it would cost as much as $5,000 to obtain a green-taxi permit and retrofit his car, including painting it apple-green and installing roof lights, a meter and credit card reader.

In the past month, the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission issued 279 green-taxi permits to livery drivers or owners. Allan J. Fromberg, a spokesman for the commission, also said that it heard from thousands of other prospective applicants through its Web site and the city’s 311 line. In all, the city plans to issue up to 6,000 green-taxi permits in the first year, and up to 12,000 more in the next two years. Each regular permit, which is valid for three years, costs $1,500 for the first year and more in subsequent years.

The city’s expansion of street-hail service was upheld recently by a state appellate court over protests from the yellow-taxi industry and other critics, including Randy M. Mastro, a lawyer and former deputy mayor who warned that it would have a “profoundly destabilizing effect” on the city’s for-hire industry. Currently, there are 13,237 yellow cabs and more than 24,800 registered livery cabs, according to city records.

Mr. Mastro said there was not enough demand in northern Manhattan and in other boroughs to support the green taxis, and that they would inevitably end up heading into yellow-cab territory to vie for passengers. “Far from solving problems, it will create a host of new ones,” he said.

The expansion has also been criticized by some livery companies who say their drivers may be tempted to cancel prearranged pickups.

Avik Kabessa, chief executive officer of Carmel, said that he was able to guarantee service to his customers by temporarily cutting off calls to drivers who missed pickups. “With this new law, I’ve lost this muscle,” he said. “The drivers are going to say, ‘No problem, I’m just going to do a street hail.’ ”

Mr. Kabessa, a board member of the Livery Roundtable, which represents 240 companies citywide that are affiliated with 14,000 vehicles, said his group had urged the city to maintain the same clear boundaries between taxi and livery service as in most of Manhattan.

It had also asked for the city to issue medallions for the green taxis instead of permits so that drivers would have a direct stake in complying with rules while also being able to earn equity on their investment.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 10, 2013

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the date that the photograph was taken.  It was taken on Monday, June 10, not on Monday, July 8.

Managing a Driver’s Many Inputs

Honda and Ohio State University are collaborating on a driver workload study. They have built a simulator on a platform that mimics vehicle motion while driving scenarios are projected on a wraparound screen and driver performance is charted.

Credit: Meg Roussos for The New York Times

Behind the Wheel | Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid: Hybrid Drivers Wanted

That posed a challenge for Volkswagen as it belatedly developed its first gas-electric hybrid passenger car, the 2013 Jetta Hybrid: how to preserve VW’s DNA while introducing technology that shuts off, at least occasionally, its prized internal combustion engines.

True, this new Jetta is not VW’s first hybrid vehicle; the Touareg Hybrid has been on sale since 2010. But given that the minuscule production of that S.U.V. in hybrid form, it was more of a pilot project than a mainstream product.

The Jetta Hybrid, on the other hand, is the real deal: an affordable, fuel-efficient Volkswagen aimed at the large market of family-car buyers.

At its fuel-efficient best, hybrid technology allows the gas engine to be taken over by a silent electric motor. Yet one could argue that VW’s identity is fundamentally characterized by the rumble of an efficient internal-combustion engine — often, of the diesel variety — springing to life when the accelerator is pressed. The engine flipping on and off could cause angst for VW and for drivers accustomed to its ways.

But VW’s engineers are clever, and based on my week with the Jetta Hybrid, it seems they managed to turn the tables, redefining hybrid-ness in a Volkswagen context. The car represents a mix of efficiency, precise handling and high-speed confidence not previously offered in a hybrid.

First, the engineers made the Jetta Hybrid feel more like a VW in how its gears shift. VW avoids the continuously variable transmissions found in hybrids from Toyota, Ford and Honda. Because variable transmissions usually operate at optimal gear ratios, they allow for efficient switching between gas and electric power sources. But with their delayed response to the accelerator, hybrids with C.V.T.’s provide about as much excitement as watching an entire golf tournament on television.

Instead, VW employs its automated 7-speed direct-shift gearbox, in which you feel the gears lock, unlock, pause and re-engage at tighter ratios as the car’s speed increases. The manual paddle shifters behind the steering wheel give you the option of controlling those gears. Think of the vroom sound children make when they play with toy cars. That’s what Volkswagen engineers were apparently seeking, and it is present in the Jetta Hybrid, though it’s missing in many hybrids (notably in the Toyota Prius with its eerie quiet at low speeds and strained high-pitched whine with rapid acceleration).

The Prius’s efficiency strategy is to nullify the gas engine with electricity, to defy its existence almost as if in embarrassment of how it’s fouling the air. Just the opposite for VW, which embraces the engine.

As a longtime hybrid driver, I had to adjust to this Jetta’s idiosyncrasies. In my first days with the car, I tried to drive it like other hybrids, with a very light touch on the accelerator to keep the car in electric mode, preventing the gas engine from waking up. But the Jetta balked at such gentle treatment. From start-up, the engine came on and stayed on, asking to be used. Lifting my foot off the brakes at a stoplight, the car surged forward disconcertingly.

But when I confidently stepped on the accelerator, the Jetta Hybrid came to life, handling switchbacks with dexterity and passing confidently on the highway.

Unfortunately, when the Jetta was driven as it wants to be driven, its mileage suffered. Over 122 miles of mixed city-highway driving, I averaged fuel economy of 35 m.p.g., well below the Environmental Protection Agency’s combined city-highway estimate of 45 m.p.g. (The Jetta Hybrid’s city rating is 42 m.p.g., and the highway estimate is 48.)

Yet, I easily managed 44 and 45 m.p.g., respectively, on two 60-mile highway jaunts. But such thrift required restraint, certainly not an autobahn driving style.

Volkswagen says the car can be driven up to 44 m.p.h. in pure electric mode, though this is not easily achieved.

The styling of the Jetta, inside and out, is clean, solid and functional, even if some of the flourishes, like the points on the front fascia, seem unresolved. The seating is generous and comfortable. Other hybrids dazzle drivers with large dashboard energy-flow diagrams and eco-motifs like leaves or butterflies, but the Jetta Hybrid’s designers remained content to simply let drivers drive. It’s all very VW.

Wheels Blog: Drivers Are Still Distracted, Study Finds

At any moment during daylight hours, according to a new government study, 660,000 Americans are using cellphones or other electronic devices while driving.

The study, by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was released Friday. It revealed that, after years of coverage and campaigns, most drivers “know that texting while driving is a dangerous behavior.” But many see “distracted driving as risky when other drivers do it, but do not recognize how their own driving deteriorates.”

Almost half of those surveyed, 48 percent, said they answered their cellphones while driving at least some of the time, and 58 percent said they continued to drive after picking up the phone. Fourteen percent said they still text or e-mail while driving.

Last year’s survey said that 40 percent made or accepted phone calls while driving and about 10 percent would read or send e-mails or text messages.

Most drivers, the survey said, support a ban on cellphone use and texting while driving, and 76 percent said they would likely say something if they were a passenger alongside a driver who was sending a text.

Wheels: Deaths of Teenage Drivers Spiked in First Half of 2012, Report Says

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times Megan Lavery, 17, driving in New Jersey in August 2012. The state has strict laws for teenage drivers.

Fatalities among teenage drivers rose sharply for the first six months of 2012, according to a new report.

The death toll for 16- and 17-year-old drivers of passenger vehicles jumped 19 percent, compared with the first half of 2011.

“It’s troubling” said Barbara L. Harsha, executive director the Governors Highway Safety Association, an organization representing state highway safety offices that released the study, “Teenage Driver Fatalities by State: 2012 Preliminary Data,” on Tuesday.

Based on initial data supplied by the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the first six months of 2012, 25 states reported increases, 17 showed a decrease, and eight states and the District of Columbia reported no change. Over all, 16- and 17-year-old driver deaths increased from 202 to 240.

“Even though the numbers are pretty small, 19 percent is pretty sizable,” Ms. Harsha said in a telephone interview. “We didn’t expect the increase to be as large as it is, so that’s a concern.”

She said the data did not include passengers, bicyclists or pedestrians. “We only looked at drivers, as that is the group most involved in fatal crashes,” Ms. Harsha said.

If the trend persisted in the second half of the year, it would be the second year of increased deaths for teenage drivers in this age group after eight consecutive years of decline. Final data is not available for 2012, but fatalities typically go up in the second half of the year, she said.

The spike in teenage driver deaths appears to have increased at an even greater rate than overall highway fatalities during this same period, Allan Williams, a road safety consultant who wrote the report, said in a telephone interview. He based the projections on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Safety Council.

Despite these increases, the deaths of teenage drivers remain historically low and are still better than they were five or even 10 years ago, he said.

“But anytime there is a favorable trend and it reverses, there is concern and alarm. We don’t want that to continue to happen,” said Dr. Williams, who is the former chief scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit group financed by the insurance industry. “We don’t want that to continue to happen.”

While it is too soon to know for certain, he attributes the increase in fatalities, in part, to a rebounding economy. With lower gas prices during the study period and greater discretionary income, more teenagers may be on the roads, which increases their exposure to risk.

Another contributing factor may be that progress has slowed among states to strengthen graduated driver licensing laws. All 50 states have some form of the laws that were first introduced in the mid-1990s to gradually grant privileges to teenage drivers during higher-risk situations, like driving at night or with peer passengers. Distracted driving is also thought to play a role, Dr. Williams said.

But while studies and surveys indicate that laws are not particularly effective in changing cellphone use, graduated driver licensing laws have proven to help reducing crashes.

“The more comprehensive state laws are, the greater the effect,” he said.

Compliance is also essential, he said. “A lot, quite frankly, depends on parental involvement,” he said. “But many parents don’t even know what the laws are. They need to know what the laws are. They need to know what the rationales are.”

In addition to strengthening laws and creating programs and awareness to increase parental supervision, improving driver education programs is also critical to reverse the upward trend, said Ms. Harsha, the executive director. “It’s time to redouble our efforts.”

The full report, including state-by-state data, is available online at ghsa.org.