Talking on Your Phone behind the Wheel

On July 1, California and Washington banned drivers from using handheld cellular devices while driving. The two states joined the likes of Utah, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, D.C., which already have bans in place. In California, police have the authority to pull over any motorist caught holding up a cell phone. Cops can write tickets totaling up to $100 for the offense. In Washington, drivers must also be committing another offense in order to receive the $124 ticket. Before these bans went into effect, cell phone carriers sent text-message reminders and car dealerships sent email warnings about the pending bans. Of course, the messages also served as marketing ploys to push the sales of hands-free devices. So are these bans necessary and do they really work? We’ll address those questions in what follows.

What’s All the Fuss About?

So why all the outrage and sudden onslaught of legislation banning cell-phone use on the road? Is it really all that dangerous? Here are some statistics about cell-phone usage and driving:

• 20% of motorists say they text message while driving, and 37% say text messaging is their biggest driving distraction
• Drivers who use cell phones while driving are four times as likely to be involved in crashes serious enough to injure themselves
• A 2006 University of Utah study found that talking on a cell phone, even a hands-free model, while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk
• 80% of collisions involve some form of driver inattention within three seconds of the event, with cell phones cited as the most common distraction
• Over 40 countries have laws limiting or banning the use of cell phones while driving

Do the Bans Work?

As well-intentioned as these laws may be, most studies have found cell phone bans to be rather impotent. In North Carolina, one study found that 11% of teen drivers were observed using their cell phones prior to a ban going into effect in December of 2006. Five months after the ban was in place, 12% of teen drivers were seen using their cell phones. With limited financial penalties and nonexistent insurance consequences, cell-phone bans don’t seem quite as potent of a deterrent as they’re intended to be.

What’s worse, one of the intentions of such bans is to encourage drivers to use the allegedly safer hands-free forms of cell phones. However, as mentioned before, motorists using hands-free devices while driving are as dangerous on the road as drunk drivers. In fact, drivers using hands-free devices were 18% slower to brake and took 17% longer to regain their speed after braking. Clearly, hands-free devices are not the panacea lawmakers were hoping they would be when these bans were conceived.

Additional Resources

• Cell Phones & Driving
• List of Countries That Ban Cell-Phone Use While Driving