Car crashes RISE in three states after texting bans pass

[Winehole23]

Texting Bans: Scourge of the Roadways! (http://www.theagitator.com/2010/09/30/texting-bans-scourge-of-the-roadways/)

Thursday, September 30th, 2010 Or something like that (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2010-09-28-1Atextingbans28_ST_N.htm).

Laws banning texting while driving actually may prompt a slight increase in road crashes, research out today shows.

The findings, to be unveiled at a meeting here of 550 traffic safety professionals from around the USA, come amid a heightened national debate over distracted driving.



“Texting bans haven’t reduced crashes at all,” says Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Non-profits,+Activist+Groups/Insurance+Institute+for+Highway+Safety), whose research arm studied the effectiveness of the laws.



Researchers at the Highway Loss Data Institute compared rates of collision insurance claims in four states — California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Washington — before and after they enacted texting bans. Crash rates rose in three of the states after bans were enacted.

The Highway Loss group theorizes that drivers try to evade police by lowering their phones when texting, increasing the risk by taking their eyes even further from the road and for a longer time.



The findings “call into question the way policymakers are trying to address the problem of distracted-driving crashes,” Lund says, calling for a strategy that goes beyond cellphones to hit other behaviors such as eating and putting on makeup. “They’re focusing on a single manifestation of distracted driving and banning it,” he says.

U.S. Transportation Secretary and anti-texting crusader Ray LaHood says the bans just aren’t being tightly enforced. The problem is, they’re pretty much unenforceable (http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/10/13/theres-no-way-to-enforce-a-texting-while-driving-ban.html).
http://www.theagitator.com/2010/09/30/texting-bans-scourge-of-the-roadways/

[DMX7]

That doesn't mean anything. They didn't even prove a correlation between the ban and the "slight increase" in road crashes, they're just "theorizing" something.

[DarrinS]

The theory seems reasonable and I agree that the ban is unenforceable.


How about a law that if you kill someone while on the phone or texting, you get charged with vehicular homicide? That might make people think twice. After all, it has been shown that people on cell phones are similar to drunk drivers when it comes to driving ability.

[FromWayDowntown]

It's one of those things that is largely unenforceable by the state in the moment. I'd think that the most effective way to discourage the practice is not by precluding drivers from doing it, but by enforcing substantial penalties upon those who injure others while engaged in the conduct and making a very public example of those situations.

Like this -- a $22 million judgment against a texting driver who killed a woman with his vehicle:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7339684


or this -- a 9 year sentence for manslaughter imposed against a man convicted texting at the time he killed a pedestrian with his vehicle:

http://www.oclnn.com/orange-county/2010-01-27/courts-crime/costa-mesa-man-convicted-of-manslaughter-for-texting-while-driving

I'd also favor the creation of a provision in the homicide sections of state law that automatically heightens the culpable mental state of texting drivers to something that will necessarily increase the maximum sentences for those who are found to have been engaged in that activity.

I realize that none of these choices are proactive enough stop people from killing other drivers through their election to text while driving, but the study would seem to suggest that proactive approaches aren't necessarily effective.

[MannyIsGod]

How can you say its enforceable? Its just as enforceable as any other traffic violation.

[coyotes_geek]

How can you say its enforceable? Its just as enforceable as any other traffic violation.

Depends how the law is written. Say a cop sees someone punching on their iphone. How does the cop know whether that person is texting, dialing, picking music, using GPS, or any one of the other hundred non-texting things you can do on a smart phone? Texting may be illegal, but are all those other things?

[FromWayDowntown]

How can you say its enforceable? Its just as enforceable as any other traffic violation.

I'd say it's practically unenforceable -- at least at levels that would achieve aims that the law is intended to accomplish -- because it's an activity that can be undertaken in ways that avoid detection.

If a car is speeding on a roadway, driving in the wrong lane of traffic, or otherwise proceeding recklessly, there's nothing the driver can do to hide that conduct; if there is a police officer there, the violation of the law is obvious and one would hope that the ticket will be forthcoming.

The conduct occurring within the vehicle is a lot harder to detect with any real accuracy. That's true because you often have an observer in one moving vehicle attempting to determine what is going on inside another moving vehicle. Additionally, the driver who seeks to avoid detection can do plenty of things to hide the conduct occurring in his car. And vehicle owners can further shroud their conduct with things like window tint.

It's illegal in Texas to drink a beer while driving a vehicle, but that law can be relatively difficult to enforce if the driver is not otherwise intoxicated. Imagine you're on a two-lane road approaching another vehicle. Each vehicle is travelling 50 mph. If you see the driver, sitting behind an acceptably tinted window, putting a can or bottle to his mouth, do you have any real way of knowing that he's drinking a beer as opposed to a coke?

[MannyIsGod]

I'd say it's practically unenforceable -- at least at levels that would achieve aims that the law is intended to accomplish -- because it's an activity that can be undertaken in ways that avoid detection.

If a car is speeding on a roadway, driving in the wrong lane of traffic, or otherwise proceeding recklessly, there's nothing the driver can do to hide that conduct; if there is a police officer there, the violation of the law is obvious and one would hope that the ticket will be forthcoming.

The conduct occurring within the vehicle is a lot harder to detect with any real accuracy. That's true because you often have an observer in one moving vehicle attempting to determine what is going on inside another moving vehicle. Additionally, the driver who seeks to avoid detection can do plenty of things to hide the conduct occurring in his car. And vehicle owners can further shroud their conduct with things like window tint.

It's illegal in Texas to drink a beer while driving a vehicle, but that law can be relatively difficult to enforce if the driver is not otherwise intoxicated. Imagine you're on a two-lane road approaching another vehicle. Each vehicle is travelling 50 mph. If you see the driver, sitting behind an acceptably tinted window, putting a can or bottle to his mouth, do you have any real way of knowing that he's drinking a beer as opposed to a coke?

Fair enough - I can see that distinction. I think messing with a phone is likely easier to enforce than an open container law but I can see why you feel its harder (and I agree with your logic) than simply detecting a speeding vehicle.

I would still like the laws on the books, however. If for no other reason than judgments such as those you mentioned.

[TeyshaBlue]

The solution is to give amnesty to someone who bitch slaps the hell outta someone who's texting while driving.
I love driving home in traffic every day behind some vapid bow-head in her SUV who can't be bothered to move ahead because she's busy texting.

Bitch slaps! Yeah. That's the best way.

[FromWayDowntown]

I would still like the laws on the books, however. If for no other reason than judgments such as those you mentioned.

I support keeping the laws on the books, no matter how difficult they may be to enforce from a practical standpoint. The mere existence of those laws can make it much easier for those who cruelly suffer from texters' conduct to prove their liability for that conduct.

[MannyIsGod]

The solution is to give amnesty to someone who bitch slaps the hell outta someone who's texting while driving.
I love driving home in traffic every day behind some vapid bow-head in her SUV who can't be bothered to move ahead because she's busy texting.

Bitch slaps! Yeah. That's the best way.

We really need to bring back public humiliation except that now not only do they stick you in one of those stock things, they take pictures of it and you're forced to have it as your profile picture on Facebook for a year. Seems to be the perfect punishment for the texters.

[Winehole23]

I support keeping the laws on the books, no matter how difficult they may be to enforce from a practical standpoint. The mere existence of those laws can make it much easier for those who cruelly suffer from texters' conduct to prove their liability for that conduct.Sure. I pretty much agree. My point in posting the OP was to highlight unintended consequences.

[MannyIsGod]

To be fair those consequences are far from proven to be caused by the law. If the rate of growth for the act of texting while driving has simply been higher than any reduction the law has caused but that does not mean the law is the cause of the increase in itself.

Think of it like the stimulus package, WH!

[LnGrrrR]

The theory seems reasonable and I agree that the ban is unenforceable.


How about a law that if you kill someone while on the phone or texting, you get charged with vehicular homicide? That might make people think twice. After all, it has been shown that people on cell phones are similar to drunk drivers when it comes to driving ability.

That sounds good to me.

[rjv]

the article misses an important point which is: with texting being against the law, in these states, the ability to prosecute an individual, who does so and causes an accident or fatality and serious injury, becomes much less difficult.

[DarrinS]

the article misses an important point which is: with texting being against the law, in these states, the ability to prosecute an individual, who does so and causes an accident or fatality and serious injury, becomes much less difficult.


Don't they keep time-stamped records, like phone records? Couldn't they tell if you'd sent a text at the time of the accident?

[LnGrrrR]

Don't they keep time-stamped records, like phone records? Couldn't they tell if you'd sent a text at the time of the accident?

They could.

[MannyIsGod]

Don't they keep time-stamped records, like phone records? Couldn't they tell if you'd sent a text at the time of the accident?


They could.

Not necessarily. The time stamp could tell when your phone received a text or when you sent a text but that doesn't mean you were actively doing anything at that time.

IE: I receive a text at 11:00am but I don't notice it until 1:30. The fact that I received it at 11:00 means nothing.

[LnGrrrR]

Not necessarily. The time stamp could tell when your phone received a text or when you sent a text but that doesn't mean you were actively doing anything at that time.

IE: I receive a text at 11:00am but I don't notice it until 1:30. The fact that I received it at 11:00 means nothing.

What I think DarrinS meant, was that if the timestamp on a phone shows a message being sent at, say 12:05 PM, and the car accident occurs at 12:06 PM, that would give some pretty strong evidence that someone was texting while driving.

[Spurminator]

This seems like an incomplete study if the only comparison was done in these states. Was the rise in accidents higher than the rise in other states where texting was not banned? Couldn't this just be a function of the increase of texting in general?

[MannyIsGod]

This seems like an incomplete study if the only comparison was done in these states. Was the rise in accidents higher than the rise in other states where texting was not banned? Couldn't this just be a function of the increase of texting in general?

Without having any data this theory to me seems more plausible than what they suggested. Thats why I mentioned it above.

[rjv]

Don't they keep time-stamped records, like phone records? Couldn't they tell if you'd sent a text at the time of the accident?

they do and they can but how can you prosecute if there is not a law against texting in your state ?