somebody else. If the organization has any intention of asking volunteers to drive, the organization needs to carefully evaluate its business auto policy to ensure that it has made the right choices in symbols and endorsements to ensure that liability for the entity and volunteer for any accident would be covered.
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Cellphone Bans Do Not Reduce Crashes, IIHS Says
ARLINGTON, VA. — State legislators across the United States enact laws that ban phoning and/or texting while driving, a new Highway Loss Data Institute study finds no reductions in crashes after hand-held phone bans take effect. Comparing insurance claims for crash damage in 4 US jurisdictions before and after such bans, the researchers find steady claim rates compared with nearby jurisdictions without such bans.
even though we know that such laws have reduced hand-held phone use, and several studies have established that phoning while driving increases crash risk,” said Adrian Lund, president of both the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and HLDI. For example, an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study that relies on driver phone records found a four-fold increase in the risk of injury crashes. A study in Canada found a 4-fold increase in the risk of crashes involving property damage. Separate surveys of driver behavior before and after hand-held phone use bans show reductions in the use of such phones while driving.
began well before the state’s ban on hand-held phoning while driving and actually paused briefly when the ban took effect. Trends in the District of Columbia, Connecticut, and California did not change, according to the study.
The HLDI database does not identify drivers using cellphones when their crashes occur. However, reductions in observed phone use following bans are so substantial and estimated effects of phone use on crash risk are so large that reductions in aggregate crashes would be expected. In New York the HLDI researchers did find a decrease in collision claim frequencies, relative to comparison states, but this decreasing trend
“So the new findings don’t match what we already know about the risk of phoning and texting while driving,” Lund said. “If crash risk increases with phone use and fewer drivers use phones where it’s illegal to do so, we would expect to see a decrease in crashes. But we aren’t seeing it. Nor do we see collision claim increases before the phone bans took effect. This is surprising, too, given what we know about the growing use of cellphones and the risk of phoning while driving. We’re currently gathering data to figure out this mismatch.”
The Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) is an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
HLDI researchers compared the District of Columbia’s collision claim frequency trend not only with statewide trends in Virginia and Maryland but also with the trend in the nearby city of Baltimore. Again, the find-
HLDI researchers calculated monthly collision claims per 100 insured vehicle years (a vehicle year is one car insured for one year, two insured for six months each, etc.) for vehicles up to three years old during the months immediately before and after hand-held phone use was banned while driving in New York (November 2001), the District of Columbia (July 2004), Connecticut (October 2005), and California (July 2008). Comparable data were collected for nearby jurisdictions without such bans. This method controlled for possible changes in collision claim rates unrelated to the bans – changes in the number of miles driven due to the economy, seasonal changes in driving patterns, etc.
Month-to-month fluctuations in rates of collision claims in jurisdictions with bans didn’t change from before to after the laws were enacted. Nor did the patterns change in comparison with trends in jurisdictions that didn’t have such laws.
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