Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Calls for National Cell Phone Ban in Cars

Illinois native and Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood thinks he has the answer to traffic fatalities; A national ban on cell phone use in automobiles.

When we talked about Illinois's proposed ban on cell phone use, we discussed how many would argue that such laws seem more like money-making enterprises than actual traffic-safety laws. Secretary LaHood seems to try to rebut the argument that restrictions on cell phone use are likely to be ineffective. The Secretary called for federal legislation to ban cell phone use in cars.

Interestingly, The Secretary's own statistics seem to betray him. His own National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) notes that about 5,474 fatalities each year "involved distracted driving', but only 995 of those are related to cell phone use. The NHTSA also has a funny definition of  "involved" when it comes to cell phone use as it considers a cell phone "involved" in fatal accident when a cell phone was "in the presence of the driver" at the time of the accident. This definition is similar to their definition of "alcohol-related" vehicle accidents, as in "alcohol-related" to the NTHS means that either a driver or a passenger had some blood alcohol content. Such a broad definition of "involved" when it comes to cell phones appears to conflict with Secretary LaHood's own definition when he say that police should have "the opportunity to write tickets when people...use a cell phone and text and drive". The Secretary's definition seems to imply active use of a cell phone only, but his own agency's definition is much more expansive.

If you look at the statistics for fatal crashes, only 3% "involve" cell phone use. For comparison, roughly 6% of fatal crashes involved drivers with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .01-.07 (Which is below the legal limit in every state). Some would argue that if the secretary were really serious about reducing fatal car crashes he should advocate lowering the legal BAC limit to .00. Calling for banning cell phones also ignores that "distraction related traffic crashes" actually declined from 2004-2009 (From 1,303,000 in 2004 to 959,000 in 2009).

However, all of these statistics ignore that the majority of accidents occur to drivers that are not intoxicated nor are they distracted. Alcohol-related fatal car crashes have declined in proportion with the decline of all fatal auto accidents. Much of this decline is due to increased safety features in automobiles. One could argue that if  the Secretary really wants to reduce traffic fatalities, he should focus on increasing safety features in cars. That would be the surest way to decrease all traffic deaths.

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