Ban Texting Law of Unintended Consequences

Texas is just about to pass legislation that would ban people from texting or driving. The legislation would fine people that were caught a few hundred dollars and possibly jail time. If you penalize something you will get less of it. However, this could encourage people to try to hide their cell phones as best as possible (possibly even more dangerous) so they are not suspected of texting while driving or perhaps get dark windows to make it hard for cops to look in.

People often talk about how they don’t like people driving or texting while in the car. We are all guilty of doing this. Getting a call or getting a text that we think is important (most of the time it isn’t). I don’t think anyone would argue talking while driving or texting while driving is safe. People often claim that these distractions can cause people to get into accidents they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten into. One problem with this argument is people don’t consider the long list of things that can distract us. Billboards, highways signs, kids in the backseat, etc can all the distractions. Some of the claims that are made are that texting while driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2006 estimated that 17,941 died because of alcohol related collusions. This would represent 40% of all total traffic related deaths. In addition to this there are 275,000 people that were injured in 2003 from alcohol related accidents. The number of deaths from 2001-2007 was a little over 16,000. Over a 6 year period this would be around 2,700 per year. Clearly, the number or people hurt or killed by drunk driving is far greater than the number of people hurt from texting or calling while driving. Also what if we have people that can drive well while texting or using their cell phone? Should we test people to see how well they can drive while using a cell phone ?

Consider the first text message was sent around 1992. Auto accidents have dropped considerably since then. The number of total traffic fatalities in the 1950’s was the same as it was in 2010 yet the population in the United States in 2010 was double of that of the 1950’s. Therefore accidents per population have drastically fallen. If we look at highway deaths per 100 million miles driven the number has been declining since 1921. The National Highway Safety was created in 1970. If you look at the number of highway deaths per 100 million miles the steepest decrease occurred before 1970. So to say we "need" an organization like National Highway Safety is utter nonsense.

Also what about the potential benefits of cell phones? Cell phones can be used for positive things like saving lives and sending vital information. For instance, if someone was in trouble we would want them to be using a cell phone in their car. Assuming that cell phones have only negative benefits is also nonsense. The important question is when looking at the overall net affect what is the outcome. Politicians and people only seem to look at intentions or just how an idea sounds without any through look at the evidence. One can only hope for the day of driverless cars.