Hand-held cell phone laws: Are they effective?

Oct 15, 2009 4:29 PM

Currently, seven states plus the District of Columbia have hand-held cell phone laws. The last to go into effect was California in July 2008, and other state bans are pending. However, there are questions as to whether these laws are working. The headlines this week showed a picture of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver violating his state’s law and using her hand-held cell phone while driving. While she was caught in the act by paparazzi and not police, the Governor responded and said there would be “swift action.” This raises the issue as to whether these laws are making an impact. A new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) took a look at a few states with the ban to see if drivers are still complying with the law and the results are mixed.

New York was the first state to institute a hand-held cell phone ban in 2001. Connecticut’s ban was enacted in 2005 and the District of Columbia in 2004. In New York, immediately after the ban, cell phone use declined by 47 percent. In Connecticut, it dropped by 76 percent. However, in those states, cell-phone use has started to increase. In the District of Columbia hand-held phone use dropped by half immediately and almost five years later has moved up a little bit, but is still holding relatively steady compared to their neighboring states, Maryland and Virginia, who don’t have cell phone laws.

To look at the long-term effects, IIHS analyzed cell phone use from 2001-2009 in the three states with bans, as well as nearby states without bans, to estimate how many drivers would be expected to use the hand-held phones had the laws not been enacted. The study found that in New York, hand-held use was an estimated 24 percent lower because of the ban, 65 percent lower in Connecticut, and 43 percent lower in the District of Columbia. From this data, it is clear that there are positive effects to the laws, but many drivers still use their hand-held phones or switch to hands-free, even though some studies have shown that the crash risk is the same for both uses.

There have been a number of studies conducted to see if there is an increased risk of a crash when using a phone while driving and all have shown that there is, but it not clear as to how much risk and how drivers respond to a ban.

What is known is that these laws have yielded thousands of tickets each year in the states with the laws and it is getting harder to enforce whether a driver is holding a phone to the ear, sending a text message, or talking on a hands-free phone. Also, many drivers simply have not been caught in the act, don’t think that there is enforcement, or haven’t yet changed their behavior since the laws have been passed, which may have been the case with Mrs. Shriver.

A few weeks ago the Department of Transportation conducted a summit to address driver distraction and discuss a course of action. While more and more states are enacting cell phone bans, texting bans, and bans for beginner drivers, this issue is a growing problem and there isn’t one clear answer. For now, the discussion will continue until a plan of action that will most likely include legislation, technology, and driver education is in place to help combat this growing safety issue.

—Liza Barth

For more information on distracted driving see our related reports:

Distracted driving summit: The highlights