Trebas explains opposition to cellphone use laws
In this piece, I first want to thank the Great Falls Tribune for allowing me an opportunity to respond to their editorial about my bill, House Bill 194, about prohibiting local cell phone ordinances while driving. They wrote a strongly worded piece about it, but I feel they didn’t address the key data that has been the core of my message.
End call for ban on cellphone bans
I have done research on the issue of distracted driving, especially as it concerns the use of cell phones while driving. In 2012, prior to Great Falls’ cell phone ban, I presented that research to the City Commission, which said that in states that passed statewide cell phone bans, the collision rates stayed the same or even went up a little. I said that the reason I believed the statistics is because people have a tendency to try and hide the activity, further lowering their eyes away from the road and into their vehicle. It is different from seat belt laws or drunk driving, as it is a much easier activity to hide, and therefore is largely unenforceable. From what I have been told, there are only ever about six police on patrol in our 20 square mile city at any given time, and that has been the same for a long time. There are not enough law enforcement officers out there to enforce the law to the degree necessary to change behavior.
I’ll quote several studies, the first being from an N.P.R. article dated Jan. 29, 2010, that referenced a study by the Highway Loss Data Institute, that said bans do not reduce collisions. The Highway Loss Data Institute’s operates under the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which has a vested interest for its insurers’ group in finding a way to reduce collision claims. Their ongoing studies, published in 2009, 2011, and 2013 have had the same results each time, even when special increased enforcement is in place. They are also referenced as conducting one of the strongest studies available, as noted by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, in a report from March 2014. The President and CEO of AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety Peter Kissinger in an Aug. 22, 2012 comment for Science Magazine titled “Why Cell Phone Bans Don’t Work,” said “We have seen the same correlations in our Traffic Safety Culture Index.”
On that basis, I have been adamant that we need a repeal of our local ordinance on using cell phones while driving, not because I think distracted driving is good, but because I think the bans are a failure, and have shown to be a failed policy in every jurisdiction in the United States that has implemented them in the last 15 years. The bans have had time to work if they were ever going to work. No one has to take my word for it, just simply go to Google and type in, “Do Cell Phone Bans Work?”
If you conclude like I have that they do not work, we need to move on from the current ban policy and find a real solution, which I think lies in the realm of behavioral science, and reducing high risk drivers behaviors overall, not just in one small area of distracted driving.
Rep. Jeremy Trebas, a Republican, represents House District 25 in Great Falls.