Short-term impacts of all-driver handheld cellphone bans on high-schoolers' texting while driving: quasi-experimental analyses of Illinois and Georgia.

ABSTRACT: Teen drivers are more likely than their older counterparts to engage in distracted driving. Many states prohibit cellphone use for teen drivers, but only prohibit texting for all drivers. Evidence that these laws have been effective is mixed. We hypothesize that recent policy changes in Georgia and Illinois from teen cellphone bans with all-driver texting bans to all-driver handheld phone bans yielded short-term reductions in teen texting while driving. We analyzed Youth Risk Behavior Surveys in Georgia, Illinois, and control states North Carolina and Michigan. We estimated the reduction in texting while driving associated with policy changes via difference-in-differences models. In Illinois, 45.4 % of high school drivers texted while driving in 2013. After a 2014 policy change to an all-d

SUBMITTER: Benedetti MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11744736 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature