Last week, the Highway Loss Data Institute released a report that examined whether collision claims had gone up, down, or stayed the same in states that have banned cellphone …
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You are right that bloggers should check their facts to make sure that they are correct, however it is not true that a projects funding has nothing to do with the results they gather. Think about it, if an insurance company is funding your JOB, then you will want to come up with results that they like so that they will continue to fund you so that you can make a living. So often times data gets exaggerated or omitted in order to give the funders a more favorable position.
A project’s funding has nothing to do with the results if you can’t show how the funding impacted the results.
How does showing a law that would ideally help decrease the number of crashes, but hasn’t, help the insurance industry? Insurers pay out for crashes, so they actually would like things that reduce the number of crashes (one would think).
I have no problem with a blogger pointing out the source of funding for a study. But they also have to clearly demonstrate how that funding might impact the results and, how, in this specific report, that may have been done. Otherwise it’s just sloppy “guilt by association” reasoning (I wouldn’t even call it logic).
it is an unfortunate fact that cell phone bans have little effect.
in order to make these effective, evidentiary rules must be instituted which would allow police to effectively enforce them with successful prosecutions.
police enforce laws like speeding because the ticket sticks. no one on the phone on the highway ever gets a ticket for tailgaiting unless the accident actually happens. it is the same principle.
video enforcement is a possibility but many money hungry townships will use this unscrupulously because these municipalities are no more honest than the drivers whom they police.
i have always thought the solution to traffic safety is technology to moderate how we use technology. if it were mandated that all new car radios have bluetooth and all new mobile phones have bluetooth then the level of driver distraction can be titrated because cellphone use would not require our hands or our eyes.
@pi –
Ah, but the surprising thing is that cell phone use empirically DROPPED in the states that had the new laws, by a statistically significant percentage. Yet the number of accidents didn’t drop.
The reason this is so surprising is that as early as seven months ago, the NYT was running articles touting studies that showed cell phones were a statistically significant independent variable in car crashes, and that users of cell phones on the road were at much higher risk of accident while using their phones.
The data doesn’t jibe. Hence, the story.
the nytimes was also a source for my post with specific regard to why police do not enforce no texting while driving laws.
i applied the data in that story to my argument about the enforcement of codes.
thank you for explaining the sitch to me, tpg.
a might also add that while mobile phone usage may have dropped after a ban, it does not mean the ban was enforced. therefore usage was abandoned voluntarily by many responsible drivers but not by the at risk group of compulsive individuals who cause accidents.
this is the connection between my remarks and the larger discussion. in some respects this is similar to a discussion about smoking or unprotected sexuality etc. as these endanger persons beyond those who engage in it and cannot monitor themselves.
Dr. Grohol,
I appreciate your well-informed and well thought-out take on the issue, especially this issues of moral hazard. Laws do not change behavior and these laws are tough to enforce. There are, however, technological responses to this: phone applications that turn off cell phones when the user is driving. These at least make it possible for parents and employers to have some enforcement over teenagers and employees. I thought I would let you and your readers know about a few options out there on the web: PhonEnforcer (free), ZoomSafer, or txtBlocker.
@chris –
The darn thing is, Chris, that the new laws against cell phone use in cars DID seem to empirically change behavior. The researchers counted cars at freeway on-ramps where drivers were talking on their phone at two times: before the law was enacted, and some time after. There was a serious and statistically significant drop in cell phone use after the laws went into place.
However…the crash rates didn’t drop.
That’s the puzzle.
Most drivers are now texting instead of talking on the cellphone – which is 10 times more distracting:)