Could Anti-Texting Laws Make Roads More Dangerous?

An anonymous reader writes "A new study has found that various state laws that ban texting while driving might actually make the roads more dangerous. If that seems counterintuitive, it's the laws of unintended consequences at work. The theory is that the laws don't do much to stop people from texting while driving — but instead, leads them to try to hide the activity more. That is, they end up trying to text with the phone held lower down to avoid it being detected. But, of course, that also takes their eyes even further off the road. The study itself looked at texting-related accidents both before and after 4 different states implemented such laws, and also compared them to neighboring states with no such laws. The results suggest the laws certainly don't help and in some cases appeared to make the situation worse. So if the laws don't work, what is a better solution to preventing texting while driving accidents?"

Comments

Re:Punish results, not behavior

[dr2chase]

That will be quite a comfort to the relatives of the deceased.

Re:because it's a distraction and dangerous?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Which studdies?

The Automobile Association of America found that using a cellphone while driving results in slower braking... as slow as if you were legally drunk (BAC==0.10). They then repeated the test using hands-free headsets and found the results were just as bad.

For texting the AAA found it *doubles* braking response time versus being drunk... in other words a texter is more dangerous than a legally drunk person.

Yeah I know - it sucks when facts interfere with preconceived notions.
You'll probably experience cognitive dissonance, refuse to accept
the facts, and try to explain away the AAA's results.