Teens love cellphones every bit as much as the mobile-phone industry embraces this critical demographic. And teens – being teens – can resist and resent authority.
As such, results of new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety should come as no surprise. Teen drivers tend to ignore bans on using phones and texting while driving, even though they profess to support such restrictions. It’s not a promising revelation, given that teens inherently lack driving experience and tend to be more vulnerable to distractions than adult drivers. Moreover, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of teen deaths, according to statistics cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Most young drivers comply with graduated licensing restrictions such as limits on nighttime driving and passengers, even when enforcement is low,” says Anne McCartt, IIHS senior VP for research and an author of the study. “The hope in North Carolina was that the same would hold true for cellphone use, but this wasn’t the case. Teen drivers’ cellphone use actually increased a little. Parents play a big role in compliance with graduated licensing rules. Limiting phone use may be tougher for them since many want their teens to carry phones.”
Phone use up after prohibition
A month or two before North Carolina’s ban on cellphone use by teens kicked in Dec. 1, 2006, according to the IIHS study, 11% of teen drivers were observed using handsets as they left school in the afternoon. Then, some five months after the prohibition took effect, researchers said nearly 12% of teen drivers were observed using phones. Most drivers were using handhelds, according to IIHS, with 9% percent holding phones to their ears and less than 1% using hands-free devices. Moreover, the researchers observed about 2% of teen drivers dialing or texting. As a point of comparison, researchers said cellphone use by drivers remained at about 13% in locations in South Carolina, which does not outlaw cellphone use by teen drivers.
“Cellphone bans for teen drivers are difficult to enforce,” said McCartt. “Drivers with phones to their ears aren’t hard to spot, but it’s nearly impossible for police officers to see hands-free devices or correctly guess how old drivers are.” She thus concluded: “Cellphone bans for teenage drivers aren’t effective, based on what we saw in North Carolina.”
Another factor for teen and adult drivers is research showing wireless hands-free gadgets do not improve driving safety.
Nevertheless, states around the country are increasingly focusing on new drivers and their beloved wireless devices.
“I think a lot of legislators are concerned about young driver safety,” said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst at the National Conference for State Legislators.
Sundeen said 18 states and the District of Columbia have laws restricting operation of wireless communications devices by teens with learner’s or instructional permits.
Six states and Washington, D.C., have laws that outlaw handset use by drivers. Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington ban wireless text messaging by drivers. Meantime, according to the NCSL’s database, 31 states this year have entertained some form of legislation involving drivers and wireless devices.
