Bans on Cellphone Use While Driving and Traffic Fatalities in the United States

Demographic characteristics and trends of cell phone use while driving citations in selected states in the United States, 2010-2020

OBJECTIVE

Distracted driving is a leading cause of motor vehicle crashes, and cell phone use is a major source of in-vehicle distraction. Many states in the United States have enacted cell phone use laws to regulate drivers' cell phone use behavior to enhance traffic safety. Numerous studies have examined the effects of such laws on drivers' cell phone use behavior based on self-reported and roadside observational data. However, little was known about who actually violated the laws at the enforcement level. This study sought to uncover the demographic characteristics of drivers cited for cell phone use while driving and whether these characteristics changed over time since the enactment of cell phone laws.

METHODS

We acquired useable traffic citation data for 7 states in the United States from 2010 to 2020 and performed descriptive and regression analyses.

RESULTS

Male drivers were cited more for cell phone use while driving. Handheld and texting bans were associated with a greater proportion of cited drivers aged 40 and above, compared to texting-only bans. Trends in the citations issued based on drivers' age group following the enactment of different cell phone laws were also uncovered. The proportion of citations issued to drivers aged 60 and above increased over time but the temporal trend remained insignificant when population effect was considered.

CONCLUSIONS

This study examined the demographic characteristics of drivers cited for cell phone use while driving in selected states with texting-only bans or handheld and texting bans. The results reveal policy-based differences in trends in the proportion of citations issued to drivers in different age groups.

The utility of telematics data for estimating the prevalence of driver handheld cellphone use, 2019-2022

INTRODUCTION

Driver distraction from handheld cellphone use contributes to fatal crashes every year but is underreported in terms of the proportion of crashes attributed to any distraction or cellphone use specifically. Existing methods to estimate the prevalence of cellphone distractions are also limited (e.g., observing drivers stopped at intersections, when crash risk is low). Our study used data from Cambridge Mobile Telematics to estimate the prevalence of drivers' handheld calls and cellphone manipulation while driving, with "cellphone motion" based on movement recorded by the phones' gyroscopes used as a surrogate for manipulation.

METHOD

We compared the telematics measures with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's roadside observations of driver electronic device use, and logistic regression tested relationships between regional, legislative, and temporal factors and the odds of cellphone behaviors occurring on a trip or at a given point in time.

RESULTS

Results showed 3.5% of trips included at least one handheld phone call and 33.3% included at least an instance of cellphone motion, with handheld calls occurring during 0.78% of overall trip duration and cellphone motion during 2.4% of trip duration.

CONCLUSIONS

Correspondence between trends in cellphone distractions across regional, legislative, and temporal factors suggest telematics data have considerable utility and appear to complement existing datasets.

The Smartphone Addiction Measure (SAM): Subscales, Validity, and Reliability

Dependence on smartphones continues to grow, with young adults showing the highest usage. In fact, reliance on smartphones may indicate a behavioral addiction, a concept gaining interest in both research and clinical practice. However, valid and reliable assessments of smartphone addiction are needed. To this end, we developed the Smartphone Addiction Measure (SAM) with an initial sample (113 participants; 32 males, 81 females) and assessed the validity and reliability of this new measure. Principle components analysis with an additional sample (286 participants; 78 males, 207 females, 1 other) revealed four factors generally associated with addiction, including salience, mood modification, withdrawal, and conflict, thus providing support for the SAM as a valid measure of addictive behavior related to smartphone use. Analyses also revealed good validity and reliability (221 participants; 38 males, 179 females, 4 other) that sufficiently support the SAM as a psychometrically sound assessment for smartphone addiction.

The association between strengthened cellphone laws and police-reported rear-end crash rates

INTRODUCTION

Prior evaluations of the connection between cellphone bans and crashes show unclear results. California, Oregon, and Washington enacted legislation (effective in 2017) to update earlier bans specific to handheld conversation and texting. This study evaluated the relationship between the laws and rear-end rates, a crash type sensitive to visual-manual cellphone use, in California, Oregon, and Washington.

METHOD

Negative binomial regression compared the change in monthly per capita rear-end crash rates in California, Oregon, and Washington before and after the law changes relative to two control states, Colorado and Idaho, during 2015-2019. Analyses examined (a) rear-end crashes with injuries in all three study states, including minor to fatal injuries; and (b) rear-end crashes of all severities in California and Washington, including property-damage-only crashes and crashes with injuries; Oregon was excluded from this analysis because of a 2018 change to its reporting criteria for property-damage-only crashes.

RESULTS

Washington's strengthened law was associated with a significant 7.6% reduction in the rate of monthly rear-end crashes of all severities relative to the controls. Law changes in Oregon and Washington were associated with significant reductions of 8.8% and 10.9%, respectively, in the rates of monthly rear-end crashes with injury relative to the controls. California did not experience changes in rear-end crash rates of all severities or with injuries associated with the strengthened law.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study are mixed, with law changes associated with significant reductions in rear-end crash rates in two of the three study states. Differences in the wording of the laws, levels of enforcement, and sanction severity may help explain the divergent results.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Crash reductions in Oregon and Washington suggest that enacting legislation that comprehensively bans practically all visual-manual cellphone activity may have made the laws easier to enforce and clarified to drivers that handheld cellphone use is unacceptable in these states.

Occupational hand trauma - Mechanism of injury and transient risk factors in Jerusalem

INTRODUCTION

Although prevalent, and variable geographically, there is little information on the incidence and risk factors for occupation hand trauma in our health care system. This pilot study was designed to determine the optimal data collection methods for transient risk factors locally METHODS: All adult patients with occupational hand trauma treated at an emergency department (ED) during a three-month period were interviewed, either in person or by phone, using a case crossover designed questionnaire, regarding occupation and exposure to potential transient risk factor.

RESULTS

Of 206 patients treated with occupational trauma during the study period, 94 had trauma distal to the elbow (46%). Patient compliance was high - 89% of the patients consented to phone interviews and 83% completed in-person ED interviews. In the 75 patients which participated in the study, several risk factors were found to be significant, including machine maintenance and being distracted, including by a cellular phone. We found lack of job experience, limited training on the job site and reports of previous injuries in these workplaces to be prevelent.

DISCUSSION

The risk factors implicated in this study are similar to those reported in previous studies at other locations and are modifiable although this is the first report linking cellular phone use and occupation trauma. This finding should be further examined in a larger group and according to occupational categories. Compliance with the study was high, in person or with phone interviews, making these options viable for further studies. Several minor changes to the questionnaire were suggested although it did conform with the case-crossover study design. According to this study, standard preventive measures may be lacking in Jerusalem and should be implemented more uniformly, including specific workplace safety plans and education and taking into consideration the risk factors documented here.

Evaluating the Impact of a Multifaceted Distracted Driving Prevention Program

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to evaluate undergraduate college students' attitude changes toward distracted driving after participating in a multifaceted distracted driving prevention program.

METHODS

This study used a quasi-experimental, pre- post-test design. Participants were undergraduate college students who were aged 18 or older and had a valid driver's license. The Questionnaire Assessing Distracted Driving was used to measure participants' attitudes and behaviors. All participants completed the entire Questionnaire Assessing Distracted Driving survey and then participated in the distracted driving prevention program that consisted of a 10-minute narrated recorded PowerPoint lecture followed by a distracted driving simulation. Descriptive statistics were calculated to describe the study sample. The Questionnaire Assessing Distracted Driving data were analyzed to ascertain any statistically significant changes in responses from pre- to postintervention.

RESULTS

From pre- to post-test, there were statistically significant increases in the number of participants who reported they would tell friends to stop texting and driving if they were a passenger, refrain from texting while driving, and wait until reaching home before retrieving their cell phones from the floor of the vehicle. Participants perceived a greater threat from drivers talking on phones or texting/emailing from pre- to post-test. Moreover, attitudes toward talking on a handheld device, talking on a hands-free phone, and texting/emailing became more negative from pre- to post-test.

CONCLUSION

The intervention helped promote negative attitudes toward distracted driving in a sample of college students immediately after participating in a distracted driving prevention program.

Short-term impacts of all-driver handheld cellphone bans on high-schoolers' texting while driving: quasi-experimental analyses of Illinois and Georgia

Teen drivers are more likely than their older counterparts to engage in distracted driving. Many states prohibit cellphone use for teen drivers, but only prohibit texting for all drivers. Evidence that these laws have been effective is mixed. We hypothesize that recent policy changes in Georgia and Illinois from teen cellphone bans with all-driver texting bans to all-driver handheld phone bans yielded short-term reductions in teen texting while driving. We analyzed Youth Risk Behavior Surveys in Georgia, Illinois, and control states North Carolina and Michigan. We estimated the reduction in texting while driving associated with policy changes via difference-in-differences models. In Illinois, 45.4 % of high school drivers texted while driving in 2013. After a 2014 policy change to an all-driver handheld ban, the percentage decreased in 2015 to 41.8 %, and decreased further in 2017 to 37.7 %. The adjusted DID estimate comparing Illinois to Michigan from 2013 to 2017 was -8.3 % (95 % CI: -15.5 % 1.1 %; p-value = 0.025). In Georgia, the percentage decreased from 37.5 % before the law to 30.8 % after, and the adjusted DID estimate comparing Georgia to North Carolina was -10.8 % (95 % CI: -19.0 %, -2.5 %; p-value = 0.011) than in North Carolina. Results support all-driver handheld phone bans to improve traffic safety for high school drivers.

The impact of Illinois' comprehensive handheld phone ban on talking on handheld and handsfree cellphones while driving

INTRODUCTION

Distracted driving has been linked to multiple driving decrements and is responsible for thousands of motor-vehicle fatalities annually. Most U.S. states have enacted restrictions on cellphone use while driving, the strictest of which prohibit any manual operation of a cellphone while driving. Illinois enacted such a law in 2014. To better understand how this law affected cellphone behaviors while driving, associations between Illinois' handheld phone ban and self-reported talking on handheld, handsfree, and any cellphone (handheld or handsfree) while driving were estimated.

METHODS

Data from annual administrations of the Traffic Safety Culture Index from 2012-2017 in Illinois and a set of control states were leveraged. The data were cast into a difference-in-differences (DID) modeling framework, which compared Illinois to control states in terms of pre- to post-intervention changes in the proportion of drivers who self-reported the three outcomes. Separate models for each outcome were fit, and additional models were fit to the subset of drivers who talk on cellphones while driving.

RESULTS

In Illinois, the pre- to post-intervention decrease in the drivers' probability of self-reporting talking on a handheld phone was significantly more extreme than that of drivers in control states (DID estimate -0.22; 95% CI -0.31, -0.13). Among drivers who talk on cellphones while driving, those in Illinois exhibited a more extreme increase in the probability of talking on a handsfree phone while driving than those control states (DID estimate 0.13; 95% CI 0.03, 0.23).

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that Illinois' handheld phone ban reduced talking on handheld phones while driving among study participants. They also corroborate the hypothesis that the ban promoted substitution from handheld to handsfree phones among drivers who talk on the phone while driving.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

These findings should encourage other states to enact comprehensive handheld phone bans to improve traffic safety.

Effectiveness of a Text Message Intervention to Reduce Texting While Driving Among Targeted Young Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial

PURPOSE

This randomized clinical trial tested the efficacy of a 6-week text message program to reduce texting while driving (TWD) for young adults.

METHODS

Eligible individuals recruited from four emergency departments from December 2019 to June 2021 were aged 18-25 years who reported TWD in the past 2 weeks. Participants were randomly assigned 1:1 to intervention:assessment control. The intervention arm (n = 57) received an automated interactive text message program, including weekly queries about TWD for 6 weeks with feedback and goal support to promote cessation of TWD. The assessment control arm (n = 55) received identical weekly TWD queries but no additional feedback. Outcomes were collected via web-based self-assessments at 6- and 12 weeks and analyzed under intent-to-treat models, presented as adjusted odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

RESULTS

The mean (SD) age was 21.7 (2.1) years, 73 (65%) were female, and 40 (36%) were White. The 6-week follow-up rate was 77.7% (n = 87) and 12-week follow-up rate was 64.3% (n = 72). At 6 weeks, 52.6% (95% CI, 39.0%-66.0%) of intervention participants reported TWD versus 63.6% (95% CI, 49.6%-76.2%) of control participants (adjusted OR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.32-1.59). At 12 weeks, 38.2% (95% CI, 22.8%-53.5%) of intervention participants reported TWD versus 69.3% (95% CI, 53.8%-84.7%) of control participants (adjusted OR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.11-0.80).

DISCUSSION

An interactive text message intervention was more effective at reducing self-reported TWD among young adults than assessment control at 12 weeks.