Mother Jones was one of several media outlets quoting a study co-authored by Dr. Rahi Abouk, Assistant Professor of Economics at Ohio University, on “Texting Bans and Fatal Accidents on Roadways: Do They Work? Or Do Drivers Just React to Announcements of Bans?” in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics: Vol. 5 No. 2 (April 2013).
“Lost in the clamor for stricter distracted-driving laws, a study from April 2013 found discouraging patterns in the relationship between texting bans and traffic fatalities,” says the Mother Jones article, “Why Texting-While-Driving Bans Don’t Work.”
As one might expect, single occupant vehicle crashes dip noticeably when a state legislature enacts a texting and driving ban. But the change is always short-lived, according to this study, which examined data from every state except Alaska from 2007 through 2010. Within months, the accident rate typically returned to pre-ban levels.
The researchers, Rahi Abouk and Scott Adams of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, attribute this pattern to the “announcement effect,” when drivers adjust their behavior to compensate for a perceived law enforcement threat—only to return to old habits when enforcement appears ineffectual. In other words, drivers might dial back their texting when they hear about a ban, but after they succumb to the urge once or twice and get away with it, they determine it’s okay and keep doing it.
Read the entire article in Mother Jones.
2014 Is Not the Year To Text While Driving
American Public Media’s Marketplace also quoted Abouk in an article on “2014 is not the year to text while driving.”
Driving while “texting” or while “holding” your cellphone falls under the category of “distracted driving.” And while a lot of states have already cracked down on it, Russ Martin with the drivers’ group AAA says there’s more to come in 2014….
Rahi Abouk is a professor at Ohio University* and co-authored a study looking at whether texting bans work. He says initially the number of fatal accidents goes down but, “The bans become ineffective on fatal accidents and drivers return to their previous behaviors after three to four months.
In other words, it has the lifespan of the average New Year’s resolution.
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