COLUMBUS – If one way to reduce distracted driving by young motorists is to reduce their cell phone use, new research suggests the best method is a seemingly obvious one: A total ban on using handheld devices while driving.
Fourteen states have enacted such bans and a new study by the study from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital shows that universal handheld phone bans for all drivers may be effective at reducing handheld phone use among young drivers.
Researchers writing in the Annals of Epidemiology examined data for young drivers’ handheld cell phone use across the country from 2008 through 2013 and found that young drivers in states with a universal handheld phone ban were 58 percent less likely to have a phone conversation while driving as those in states without a ban.
The effect also increases the longer the law is in effect, said Dr. Motao Zhu, PhD, the study’s lead author and the center’s principal investigator.
“We know that traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for young adults between 15 and 24 years of age and distraction is a key factor in many of these crashes,” Zhu said. “Our study shows that bans work. We encourage all states to implement universal bans on handheld phone use while driving.”
Zhu says universal bans are easier to enforce than those based on age.
Fourteen states have enacted total bans on handheld phone use while driving, but Ohio is not one of them, leaving it up to local governments to enact their own. So far, Bexley is the only city in central Ohio to take that step.
The data used in study came from the National Occupant Protection Use Survey, which uses roadside-observed handheld phone conversation at stop signs or lights in cities across the U.S.