Banning Texting While Driving Leads to MORE Accidents

When the government starts banning behavior there are always unintended consequences:

Researchers at the Highway Loss Data Institute compared rates of collision insurance claims in four states — California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Washington — before and after they enacted texting bans. Crash rates rose in three of the states after bans were enacted.

The Highway Loss group theorizes that drivers try to evade police by lowering their phones when texting, increasing the risk by taking their eyes even further from the road and for a longer time.

Let me just agree for the record that texting while driving is a bad idea. Anything that takes your concentration away from the road and directs is somewhere else is going to cause problems. However, do-gooder government bans of activities like this are the most ignored laws on the books and people will figure out ways to get around them.  In the case of texting they figured out a way that was more dangerous than the activity as originally banned.

Have I stopped talking on my cellphone while driving (also illegal in CA)? No. I thought I would play by the rules and use a blue-tooth device I had rarely ever used, but promptly lost it on the first long trip I took it on. I'm not going to replace it. If I need to make or receive a call while driving, I'm just going to go ahead and do it.

They can't stop all of us.