• 12
  • September
    2011

Passing a statewide ban on texting while driving or cell-phone use behind the wheel is one thing. Thirty-four states have banked texting while driving for all drivers. Ten states and the District of Columbia have gone a step further and banned the use hand-held cell phones while driving for all drivers. The goal is clear: to reduce car accidents caused by distracted driving.

But how effective is enforcement of such bans? A recent year-long study in Syracuse, New York, and Harford, Connecticut, casts important light on that question.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration worked with police in Syracuse and Hartford to aggressively enforce cell-phone bans and track the results. The data has much to say about how aggressive enforcement can bring down the amount of distracted driving

In both Syracuse and Hartford, police wrote more than 9,000 tickets for talking on cellphones while driving or texting while driving. Researchers found that the enforcement campaign reduced texting while driving by 72 percent in Hartford. The reduction in Syracuse was 32 percent.

NHTSA believes that the reduction was greater in Hartford than Syracuse because Connecticut's texting and cellphone ban allows for primary enforcement. In New York, only secondary enforcement is permitted.

This means that in New York State police do not have the right to ticket someone for the violation, unless the person has been stopped for another suspected offense. In Connecticut, by contrast, the texting ban is a primary offense. Police are allowed to pull a driver over for using a cell phone behind the wheel, even if there is no other offense.

The common theme of the enforcement campaign, however, is that enforcement does work. Improper use of phones behind the wheel can come down, when people know that law enforcement is encouraged to take effective enforcement action.

Source: "High-tech features can tempt drivers to take eyes off road," Chicago Tribune, 8-27-11