Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
PrintStates including Pennsylvania are making headway in a multifaceted campaign against distracted driving, according to a new national study.
With technology serving up more and more lures to motorists' attention, states are combining education and enforcement in an effort to keep drivers focused on the road, the Governors Highway Safety Association reported Tuesday.
Twenty-eight states have enacted bans on text-messaging while driving and seven states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have banned hand-held cell phone use by drivers.
PDFAlthough Pennsylvania has enacted no laws to curb distracted driving, the state "is doing a lot of the right things" to raise awareness and educate drivers, GHSA spokesman Jonathan Adkins said.
The state has made distracted driving a priority in its highway safety plan; provides educational material to teens; collects data on the role of distraction in crashes; and makes distracted driving a component of driver education and the licensing exam, the association reported.
Pennsylvania's top priority should be a statewide ban on texting, Mr. Adkins said. Bills to do so have been stuck in the Legislature for more than a year.
"Education is effective to a point but there's nothing more effective than the fear of a ticket," he said.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 6 percent of drivers were using hand-held cell phones at any given moment in 2008, up from 4 percent in 2002. It said 1 percent of drivers were texting or otherwise manipulating electronic devices at any given moment.
NHTSA estimated that in 2008, the most recent year for which data was available, 5,870 people were killed and 515,000 were injured in crashes where distraction was noted on the police reports. That made up 16 percent of fatalities and 21 percent of crashes with injuries.
Because of the difficulty in reporting and compiling data on distracted driving crashes, those figures "may be just the tip of the iceberg," the governors association said.
GHSA Chairman Vernon F. Betkey Jr. said the national strategy against distracted driving "must be done comprehensively, through a multifaceted approach including education, laws and enforcement, data collection and private sector involvement."
"Our new report shows states are already going down this road. We know from our experiences with drunk driving and seat belt use that there is no magic bullet, and the same holds true with distracted driving," he said.
The GHSA study is available online at www.ghsa.org.
Among the association's findings:
• Pennsylvania was one of 27 states with distracted driving in their strategic highway safety plans.
• Pennsylvania has been a leader in collecting data on the role of distraction in crashes, doing so since at least 1987.
• Forty-three states collect crash data, but the efforts are not uniform. "Some efforts are extensive and include a range of distraction activities; others are not," the association reported.
Examples of elements collected on crash forms include cell phone use (hand-held or hands free), children, eating and drinking, smoking, animals, inattention, reading, personal hygiene, visual obscurement, operating electronic equipment; object or person outside the vehicle, sun in eyes, insects, animals outside the vehicle, navigation device and Palm Pilot.
No state has an outright ban on cell phone use. In addition to the states with prohibitions on texting or hand-held phone use, 18 ban school bus drivers from talking on the phone while driving and 28 prohibit cell phone use by novice drivers.
Surveys have shown that an overwhelming majority believes texting while driving is dangerous and should be banned; yet in a survey sponsored by the AAA last year, 40 percent of drivers younger than 35 admitted to texting while driving during the previous month.
Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
