The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) held its national Distracted Driving Summit in late September 2010. As part of its campaign to curtail life-threatening driver behavior, the NHTSA advanced programs and regulations that ban text messaging on America's roadways; however, in that same month, the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), issued findings that suggest text messaging bans don't actually reduce auto vehicle crashes.
The HLDI supports the IIHS commitment to reduce deaths, injuries and property damage from vehicle crashes on U.S. roadways through its review and analysis of property and human loss data. Last year, the HLDI fueled controversy regarding ineffectiveness of cell phone bans. This fall, the research group made similar findings about drivers and text messaging.
Reporting that traffic fatalities fell another 9.2 percent in the first half of 2010, the NTHSA doesn't agree with the HLDI's recent conclusions and thinks the results are misleading. At the current rate of decline, national traffic fatalities may be fewer than 30,000 for the year. This dramatic decrease comes after 30 states and the District of Columbia have enacted text-messaging bans.
Other Forms of Distracted Driving
Considering the full impact of the HLDI study, it is important to note that the study doesn't state that texting while driving is safe. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) has offered other forms of driver distractions, such as electronic entertainment, as culprits in the fight against distracted driving. Considering the recent news story about a TriMet bus driver reading a Kindle while driving his bus route down a Portland interstate, the GHSA position is well founded.
Trying to Conceal Texting While Driving?
The HLDI concedes that there are weaknesses in the study, and that distracted driving is a complicated issue. The group also accepts that their study results may be affected by several factors, including the difficulty in enforcing existing text ban laws and that increases in crashes may be due to causes other than texting. The research also implies that drivers may change their behaviors to avoid detection, but not to minimize their use of mobile communication devices. By continuing to drive and text or use cell phones, but keep that use hidden from other drivers, they may actually cause more accidents.
With this recent HLDI report, initiatives and legislative efforts for cell phone and texting bans may face more opposition. While the HLDI's study may not support texting bans, the NTHSA and GHSA continue to support driver texting bans, but also realize that more study, driver education and new technologies that disable this risky driver behavior may be necessary to make our nation's roads safer.
