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Car Crash ER Visits Fell In States That Ban Texting While Driving, Study Says (cnn.com)
A new study finds that states with bans on texting while driving saw an average 4% reduction in emergency department visits after motor vehicle crashes, an equivalent of 1,632 traffic-related emergency department visits per year. CNN reports: Researchers examined emergency department data across 16 US states between 2007 and 2014. The states were picked based on the availability of information regarding motor vehicle accident injuries for which emergency department treatment was needed. In the United States, 47 out of 50 states currently have laws restricting texting while driving. Of the 16 states researchers looked at in the study, all but one (Arizona) had one of these laws.
The states that had texting bans, regardless of the type or who it applied to, saw a 4% average reduction in emergency department visits, according to the results published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. The states that chose to implement primary bans on all drivers saw an 8% reduction in crash-related injuries. Drivers of all ages, even those older 65, who are typically not known for texting while driving, saw reductions in the number of injuries following crashes.
The states that had texting bans, regardless of the type or who it applied to, saw a 4% average reduction in emergency department visits, according to the results published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. The states that chose to implement primary bans on all drivers saw an 8% reduction in crash-related injuries. Drivers of all ages, even those older 65, who are typically not known for texting while driving, saw reductions in the number of injuries following crashes.
Huh?!
You should get out more. Take a road trip. Don't read so much. Find out what is waiting for you.
Feel free to use your real name. Criminals don't sue so you're very safe.
It's interesting that a study like this is even necessary. Who wants the privilege of handling the opposition argument? People will do it anyway? Sure, some will disregard the law out of hand, but a certain percentage will not.
The main problem with the legislation is enforcing texting while driving. Considering the time restraints alone, LEOs can't pull over everyone with a cellphone in their hands; and even if they could, we're mostly not willing to cede our rights away to away to allow a search of our phone for confirmation.
Banning the use of cellular phones entirely, while driving, is the only practical legislation.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I pointed out a girl at a fuel pump today to the attendant that she was on her phone with bowser in hand. The attendant PA’d this girl over the horn, but she carried on phone gawking 100% oblivious to her surroundings. She was barely 18 and a P plater, which here in australia means nooby driver.
We have harsh laws here, but they are strongly ingored by everyone.
Yeah the thing about lawsuits is they have this way of attracting witnesses who say things that third parties start to find interesting. So the fact that your employer was lying so much and engaging in such conduct clearly indicates the existence of more such conduct which would likely be uncovered and would expose the criminal to additional lawsuits or who knows what if they are involved with even shadier people then themselves. And if they aren't really criminals then they won't sue anyway because they probably have an explanation they would have shared by now oft wante to share it
If more people followed this law. Itâ(TM)s good seeing some are. But, here in Virginia, I see college students texting while driving all the time. I have even seen someone with their laptop on their lap, driving with their knees as they typed away during the morning rush hour where everyone is doing 65-70 mph.
Banning skiing would result in a 90% reduction in deaths caused by running into trees.
Nobody is forcing you to drive. If you don't accept the risks take a bus and leave the rest of us alone.
What about what about?!?
The number of times I see drivers texting while coming onto an intersection or traffic lights is staggering. These days traffic lights are no guarantee that a car will stop at a red light so you can cross the road.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Enjoying your schizophasia?
There's not an "opposition argument". It's a scientific study.
I don't respond to AC's.
You have to be careful about these kinds of statistics. There are such a tremendous amount of uncontrolled variables that chalking this up to one single factor is probably not accurate. Fatalities per mile driven has been on a downward trend since the 1980s.
Also, the fundamental statistic here - the number of emergency room visits following an accident has decreased - does not seem appropriate for this study. Essentially this says that the rate of accidents themselves may be the same (or even have increased), it's just that the likelihood of serious injury has decreased. I'm not sure if they are implying that the accidents were going to happen regardless, and texting simply made them worse? Specifically, the quote about those 65 and older, who are the least likely to text while driving, also showed "reductions in the number of injuries following crashes". Again, it does not say they were in less crashes. It says that the crashes appeared to be less severe and thus they didn't go to the ER as often. That totally sounds like the result of better engineering so crashes result in less severe injuries.
To me, this statistic would indicate an increase in safety due to automobile engineering, or that other changes that directly impact the severity of an accident (reduced speed limits) have also taken affect.
I'm not condoning texting while driving. I just don't like to see data potentially misrepresented even if it is for the "greater good", and thus no harm / no foul if the study is inaccurate.
Better known as 318230.
We have laws against distracted driving and some fairly harsh fines. Some people still can't seem to break the habit of texting while driving. A local driver got stopped and ticketed twice in 6 minutes by two different cops and dinged with a total of $1800 in fines and license penalties.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
just ban stupidity.
I've been texting and driving for over two decades. Still no accidents because I'm not a dumbfuck like most of the population. I don't do it in moderate of heavy traffic, I look up every 2 seconds or less, I don't look down to text (I bring my phone up into view so I can still see the road), and I leave a ton of distance between me and any other cars on the road to account for decreased reaction time.
Murder, rape, assault, lying to Contgress, etc. When something is illegal, people stop doing it.
Only 1 negative sample?
Those researchers need their science license revoked
Wow, another way America is behind. Most countries have banned nationally already.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
With that SAME logic, banning (insert "harmful" practice or item) would reduce injury or death. Murder is illegal, illegal aliens are illegal, felony possession of firearms are illegal, driving while intoxicated is illegal, possession of illegal drugs/manufacturing is illegal. Another "study" just to push a narrative. Texting while driving...which falls under the guise of "careless & imprudent driving" (C&I). But, this is just another way politicians can say we did something, to garner more votes.
Texting and driving is bad. Reducing it should make roadways safer. Legislation and enforcement against it could or should be modeled on DUI / DWI prototypes. Etc. We all know that. Trying to verify that suitable legislation and enforcement has the intended and beneficial effects is also important because it guides and improves public policy and funding to address these issues. So, kudos to those who try to conduct worthwhile research or analyze relevant statistics.
Sadly, this paper doesn't really seem to say anything or fit the profile of worthwhile research. Undoubtedly, they did their diligence in getting public records, culling the data, running some analysis, and popping some kind of p-value. But none of this quite makes sense to explain if texting bans improve safety. See the comment above by Dan East, "Careful with statistics". This expands on the theme.
First, we have too much lately of reporting by CNN and others (e..g. a Wired article about DNA editing, also posted today on Slashdot today). The science reporting in these articles is always awful. It assumes that the readers of such blogs are all retards, idiots, and profoundly uneducated, providing not one shred of meaningful scientific discussion and insight or even adequate reporting of technical facts from the primary source being reported on - you know, mentioning the actual science. Then, go to the primary source, and it is pay-walled with just a short often meaningless abstract. So, intelligent savvy readers see this and get frustrated that they cannot get to see the evidence for themselves. Or, unsophisticated readers read a sloppy 3rd grade level blog and come away un- or mal-informed, erroneously believing unsubstantiated ideas or disbelieving correct but unverified claims. That can be forgiven perhaps in a case such as this because we all know that texting while driving is wrong, so anything that hypes up that sense of universal responsibility is okay, but that still does not make it okay science or responsible journalism. So, any commentary by me or anyone else here is potentially flawed because we are drawing inferences from an unseen article. I for one did not look past the paywall to see the whole thing. But, here is the gist of the article as I can infer:
The article, either by exact logic and statistical proof, or else by fuzzy loose inference (and most of us do not know which), concludes the following: Legislate a texting ban, then this results in fewer emergency room worthy injuries, so anti-texting laws work. First, looking at ER visits after a crash seems like the most odd of all measures. What we really would like to know is, does anti-texting reduce crashes? Secondarily, does it reduce injuries, fatalities, expenses, legal costs, etc. - all worthy secondary endpoints, but first and foremost, the prime predicate is that texting causes crashes, so measure if anti-texting prevents crashes. There is no indication that in their dataset, that they did or did not look at how many crashes or non-ER crashes occurred - maybe they did , but the weak abstract gives nothing to go on. (To be fair to the investigators, they might have had little further information to work with, so they did their best with what they could gather.)
Next, one has to ask, how does a texting ban reduce ER visits if there is no verification that it even reduces crashes. Even if crashes are reduced, the primary intent of such bans, how does that make the trauma any less severe that a lesser percentage of crashes needs to go to the hospital? Perhaps as some here speculate, texters are moving slower so less energy per impact and less severe trauma (a logical argument to be sure, but I don't buy that they are moving slower). Or, perhaps vehicle-versus-vehicle trauma is unchanged, but vehicle occupants are relatively protected, whereas pedestrians are more at risk, and less texting injuries has a disproportionate benefit to bikers-pedestrians (that is believable).
Here are other possible correlations that invalidate any
If you look at enough statistics then you will find one that correlates with your hypothesis, if only by chance.
But any proper analysis is far to sophisticated for the political system. And people use phones for navigation. They also text while stopped at traffic lights, illegal in Australia but hardly a concern.
> The science reporting in these articles is always awful. It assumes that the readers of such blogs are all retards, idiots, and profoundly uneducated, providing not one shred of meaningful scientific discussion and insight or even adequate reporting of technical facts from the primary source being reported on - you know, mentioning the actual science.
That is probably a fair assumption. And years of dumbing down has not improved the nation's intellect.
But there is another effect. News is created by journalists who are experts at appealing to a mass audience. It is neither their expertise nor remote interest to actually understand anything other than ratings demographics.
hymenless primates
Found my new band name!
For your readability pleasure... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just another day in Paradise
+1 great reference. I suspect that jewels like Fox News and the UK Daily Mail have addressed readability very well.
It is not so much that people are stupid (although many are not as smart as the first appear). Rather it is that many are intellectually lazy, and just do not think about things deeply.