In the past year, safety experts have compared using a cellphone behind the wheel to driving drunk. But a new study looked at three states, plus the District of Columbia, which have banned drivers from using handheld cellphones. They found that wrecks DIDN'T decrease, despite the bans.
There might be a reasonable explanation. Maybe people are continuing to talk and drive, or maybe they've just switched to headsets. But the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety argues that banning cellphones might not work miracles.
"The key finding is that crashes aren't going down where handheld phone use has been banned," Lund says. "This finding doesn't augur well for any safety payoff from all the new laws that ban phone use and texting while driving."
