The Colorado legislature has been admirably restrained in trying to save drivers from themselves. Even though a stiffer seat-belt law would net this state millions in federal transportation aid, lawmakers last week rejected once again a bill letting police pull us over solely for a seat-belt violation.
State law already says you must wear a seat belt. But a cop can’t ticket you unless you’ve been stopped for something else — for an infraction, presumably, that endangers other lives as well.
And that’s how it should be: Let police spend their limited time protecting us from the reckless behavior of others rather than from our own stupidity.
The National Transportation Safety Board maintains that “states that have enacted primary seat belt enforcement have about a 10-15 percent higher use rate” than other states. Maybe so, but that still means most of the huge boost in seat-belt use in recent decades — nationally the rate is about 80 percent — has been propelled by a change of attitude. We simply feel exposed if we don’t buckle up.
Colorado lawmakers have been equally cautious — for good reason, it turns out — in cracking down on cellphone use in cars. Legislators last year banned texting while driving, which no one tries to defend. And although they barred teen drivers under 18 from using a cellphone, they balked at a plan to restrict adults.
No one disputes that using a cellphone can be a dangerous distraction (although research from Virginia Tech suggests that reaching for an electronic device and dialing are the big threats, not listening or talking). The question is whether cellphone bans actually work.
The Highway Loss Data Institute tried to find out by tracking over time the frequency of collision claims in states that restricted cellphone use as well as by comparing the patterns there to those in nearby states. Its recently published conclusion: “Insurance collision loss experience does not indicate a decrease in crash risk when hand-held cell phone laws are enacted.”
In case you’re wondering, the institute’s funding comes from auto insurers, who have every reason to support a crackdown on dangerous behavior.
What to make of such data? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, donning the robes of a bureaucratic bully, immediately denounced the study. He contended it “encourages people to wrongly conclude that talking on cell phones while driving is not dangerous” and undermines “strong nationwide efforts to make our roadways safer.” The study does neither, of course.
It’s downright irresponsible, LaHood insisted, to suggest that laws banning driver cellphone use fall short of their promise — but what if it happens to be true?
Is it irresponsible to tell the truth if it conflicts with a federal action plan?
If the finding is accurate, it would only mean that driver cellphone use will have to be discredited through educational campaigns — at least until voice-activated technology helps alleviate the risk.
And remember: It’s not as if Colorado is undergoing a surge of accidents brought on by distracted driving and defiance of the seat-belt mandate. Quite the opposite. Motoring fatalities dropped to below 500 in this state in 2009 for the first time in 30 years — a period in which the population and vehicle miles traveled exploded. It’s simply never been safer on the open road — even if we don’t always put down our cellphones when we should.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
