Texting While Driving Doesn't Appear to Lead to More Accidents
Let's get this out of the way: Texting while driving is admittedly dangerous. I don't touch my phone while my car is in motion and you shouldn't either. That said, there's mounting evidence that the crusade against texting is way out of proportion to its actual danger.
Consider, for example, this pair of charts. On the left, you can see that the increase in cellphone subscribers has increased almost exponentially in the last 15 years, rising from almost zero to well over 250 million. In the same time period, the number of car accidents has steadily fallen year over year -- even as cell phone use has become ubiquitous.
How can you explain this data? Insurance Institute for Highway Safety president Adrian Lund contends that texting may have simply replaced other kinds of distracted driving. People might text instead of reading the paper, for example.
Certainly, as I've already reported, it's true that cell phone bans have not resulted in a net reduction of car crashes. That could mean any number of things, but it's entirely possible that drivers are reverting to other varieties of distracted driving.
Intrigued? Read an interview with Lund in Jalopnik, where you can challenge more of your core beliefs about cell phones and driving.
Photo courtesy Flickr user Aaron Goodwin