192 Knee-Jerk ,Cell-Phone Banning Nannies

HB1360 (Relative to using certain electronic devices while driving) is HB1117’s cell phone ban twin, and 192 New Hampshire House reps voted in favor of it last week, even though there is no evidence it would make any difference–unless inconveniencing everyone, all the time, was the difference they were hoping to make.

NHTSA – Most crashes involve a relatively unique set of circumstances that make precise calculations of risk for engaging in different behaviors very difficult. Thus, the available research does not provide a definitive answer as to which behavior is riskier.

HB1360 is a confluence of intrusive ideas motivated by the Progressive desire to limit behavior, based–as is typical for knee-jerk liberals–on emotion and not evidence.

CNN 2010– A new study suggests laws banning the use of hand-held devices while driving have not reduced the rate of accidents in three states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to the nation’s capital, the report by the Highway Loss Data Institute reviews insurance claims in New York, Connecticut and California. It also compares the data to other areas that do not have cell phone bans.

Followed by this…

ScienceMag.org 2012– You can take the driver away from the cell phone, but you can’t take the risky behavior away from the driver. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers who are nearly as prone to crash with or without the device. The findings may explain why laws banning cell phone use in motor vehicles have had little impact on accident rates.

The New Hampshire state police cannot confirm exactly how many fatal accidents were the result of distraction, but the ‘guesstimate’ is just under 3 in 10.  Of those three they cannot tell you what distraction caused them.   Cell phones may have not been a factor at all.

Approximately 2.6 in 10 motor vehicle deaths in NH (as an average) involve motorcycles, nearly identical to those of all deaths credited to distraction.

While young drivers are a major target of most banning legislation almost 8 out of 10 deaths (on average) in New Hampshire are adults (young and old), with alcohol and speed being the two biggest factors in a significant majority of motor-vehicle fatalities–quite often at the bottom of a tree.

Now.  We have plenty of laws relating to speed and impairment.   We have a texting ban–deemed ineffective and almost unenforceable.  There is, on the books, a distracted driving law.  Cell phone use as a major distraction that results in injury or death is not conclusive.  Bans on cell phones do not work.  People prone to distraction by phones are equally prone to distraction without phones.  And as I have observed in the past, conversation has long been identified as equally distracting whether it be on a phone or with one or more passengers.

No one is suggesting we ban car-pooling or passengers.  We won’t be banning trees or drinking.  We cannot spend trillions to police every inch of road to enforce speed limits, texting bans, or well-intentioned but pointless and ill-conceived bans on cell phone use.  And the data suggest the bans do not work.

We also know that vehicle related fatalities rise and fall in a predictable range in the Granite State, and in the years when we are closer to 90 as opposed to 130, no one is blaming cell phones for the sudden dearth in deaths.  There will never be an appeal to roll back the bans once put in place.

So the New Hampshire State Senate should vote down HB 1360.

All it does is inconvenience everyone for no demonstrable gain.

There is also the risk that it only exists because the Democrat’s Federal masters desire it.  Banning phones is on the progressive docket.

Here in New Hampshire, One hundred and sixty Democrats and thirty-two Republicans voted in favor of just such a ban.  Here they are.