Text ban fail: safety reg produces more accidents.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Citings - Brief article

WHEN SAFETY-obsessed legislators ban texting from the driver's seat, the roads don't get any safer. Or at least they didn't in Michigan, where the rate of serious automobile accidents actually increased slightly after a ban on texting while driving went into effect in July 2010, according to a study in the May 2014 Journal of Adolescent Health.

Oddly, there was a decline in the rate of less serious accidents involving minor property damage and no injuries. This finding contradicted the researchers' hypothesis that the introduction of the texting restriction for all drivers would be followed by a reduction in crashes of all...