Monday, September 28, 2009

A Federal Ban on Texting While Driving?

In response to claims that texting-while-driving (TWD) causes traffic accidents, Congress is considering

a federal bill that would force states to ban texting while driving if they want to keep receiving federal highway money.
This approach to forcing a particular policy on the states mimics the 1984 Federal Uniform Driving Age Act, which threatened to withhold federal highway funds unless states adopted a 21-year-old minimum legal drinking age. The justification for that law was reducing traffic fatalities among 18-20 year olds.

A federal ban on TWD is not compelling:

1. Federal imposition of the 21-year old minimum drinking age did not save lives.

2. A ban on texting might increase other distractions: adjusting the radio, putting on makeup, eating a sandwich, reading a map, and so on. Relatedly, the evidence that TWD causes accidents is far from convincing. Traffic fatalities per vehicle mile travelled have declined substantially over the past 15 years, despite the explosion in text messaging.

3. TWD has benefits, not just costs. Truckers, for example, claim that

Crisscrossing the country, hundreds of thousands of long-haul truckers use computers in their cabs to get directions and stay in close contact with dispatchers, saving precious minutes that might otherwise be spent at the side of the road.
4. If the benefits of banning TWD become clear, most states will ban on their own.

Thus laws that penalize TWD might make sense. But this is an issue for states, not the federal government.

13 comments:

Clay Barham said...

Next thing is to ban radio programs, mainly Rush, as well as conversations and, finally, thinking. We need their care sdo badly. Was Obama truthful in his campaign? See www.claysamerica.com for the answer.

Doug said...

Wouldn't murdering your friends sitting beside you (in the case of a lethal accident) with negligence be enough deterrent in the first place? The most any government entity should do is discourage it by reminding anybody of its risks.

saintbumper said...

80% percent of all rear end collisions (the most frequent vehicle accident) are caused by driver inattention, following too closely, external distraction (talking on cell phones, shaving, applying makeup, fiddling with the radio or CD player, kids, texting, etc.) and poor judgement.

I doubt if we'll be able to stop the madness so I went out and got one of these sparebumper.com

John Rob said...

Texting while driving can end lives, concentrating on driving is very important. It is better to use http://www.drivesafe.ly/ mobile application to listen to incoming text messages and prevent accidents.

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