A lot of people are behind the movement to ban texting and driving, and with good reason. Distracted drivers cause a lot of crashes, and someone who is looking at a phone instead of the road can absolutely cause a wreck that could very easily have been avoided. Everyone in Connecticut has a right to safe roads, so no one wants distracted drivers to violate those rights.
However, would you believe that a lot of people think texting bans aren’t actually the answer to the problem? Some studies have claimed the roads are more dangerous when these bans are in place.
The issue lies, instead, with the drivers. A lot of people are going to text and drive, whether or not it is legal. They don’t care about the law; they just want to send that text and they think that it’s safe.
Still, they have to think about the law. They don’t want to hold the phone up high, where the police could see it. They have to keep it as low as they can, down by the seat. This way, they can still send and receive texts, as they were going to do all along, without drawing attention.
You can see what the problem is. A driver who does this then looks very far away from the front window when he or she is using the phone, staring at the floor. Drivers who are trying very hard not to get a ticket may be more likely to crash than someone with the phone up by the window.
In fact, accidents have gone up in some places with these bans, all because distracted driving does not actually stop—it just gets more dangerous.
The type of distraction doesn’t matter if you’re injured, though; you may be able to get compensation.
Source: Tech Dirt, “New Study Shows Texting Bans May Make Roads Even More Dangerous,” Mike Masnick, accessed Aug. 13, 2015