http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2010/01/results-of-cell-phone-study-surprise-researchers.html
A recent study on cell phone use by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, has left researchers puzzled. According to the findings, banning cell phone use in cars not only failed to reduce crashes but appeared to make no difference whatsoever.
The researchers studied crash data from California, New York, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., following the bans those states implemented on hand-held cell phone use while driving. The number of crashes occurring before and after the ban were virtually identical despite decreased cell phone use by drivers. As one researcher put it, “We can’t even see a blip in the data.”
The researchers measured cell phone use by going to street corners and exit ramps and counting how many drivers were holding cell phones to their heads before and after the bans took effect. They estimated a decline in cell phone use of 41% to 76%. Because previous studies demonstrated that drivers using cell phones were four times as likely to crash, the researchers expected to find fewer crashes.
Researchers now must ferret out what this means. One possibility is that drivers in those states switched to hands-free phones, which, it has often been noted, are just as distracting as hand-held devices.
The more daunting possibility is that cell phones are just one example of driver distraction that happened to get a lot of attention because it’s a relatively new technology. In this case, we are all living in a driver-distracted world, and everything from fiddling with the stereo or trying to read street signs in an unfamiliar neighborhood bring their own set of risks.
