Is the Hands-Free-Only Law Reducing Hands-Free Use?
At the California Office of Traffic Safety Summit this afternoon in San Francisco, I was talking to AAA’s Steven Bloch about research the group did recently on compliance with California’s law requiring car drivers to use only hands-free devices while driving. He referred to an interesting finding, referenced in the link above, that came after sifting through the observational data: As might be expected, hand-held phone use while driving had declined, but hands-free use has actually declined as well since the law was passed (at least according to this survey).
No, correlation is not causation, but it’s intriguing nonetheless. Bloch theorizes (unscientifically, he stresses) one of two things is happening: One, the publicity about the law has raised awareness in general about the risks of talking on a phone — hand-held or not — while driving (and this trend shall pass); or two, that people have not fully understood the law, and may be confusing one form of phone with the other (I admit to sometimes taking a moment to comprehend what the ungainly term ‘hand-free phone’ actually signifies). A third possible idea is that people may somehow feel police will be looking more carefully at all drivers on a phone, regardless of whether it’s legal or not. Or perhaps there’s some other unknown factor at work. Or perhaps the sample size is simply not large enough; perhaps more people than ever are driving and talking.
Even so, the idea had me wondering about other cases where a law intended to curb one behavior had, unintentionally or not, also curbed an associated, though legal, behavior. Any thoughts?
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