Kojo Quartey: Distracted driving is costly, and lives lost are priceless
Recently, both Michigan and Ohio have enacted legislation limiting cellphone use while driving. Both bills make it illegal to manually use a cellphone or other mobile electronic device while operating a vehicle. Under the law, a driver cannot hold or support a phone or other device with any part of their hands, arms or shoulders. These laws are of course to prevent the numerous accidents that occur due to distracted driving.
Currently, there are 24 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands that prohibit hand-held cellphones while driving. Texting and driving is illegal in 48 states and D.C. Missouri and Montana are the two states that allow texting and driving as long as you are 21. Missouri’s law will change on Aug. 28, 2023, and so Montana will be the last one left. Please don’t ask me why, because your guess is as good as mine.
As much as I hate to admit it, I have used my cellphone more than once while driving, and so have the majority of us. By the way, using Bluetooth is acceptable.
While cellphone use is the most common form of distracted driving, there are many other forms. These include, eating a triple burger or meatball sub, shaving (I just saw someone doing that last week), putting on makeup (I have never done that), changing radio stations (guilty), checking the GPS (guilty), and turning and looking when your child in the back says, “Dada, look!” (I plead the Fifth here).
Distracted driving is a serious issue which has cost many individuals their lives. When lives are lost, the cost is priceless. I will refer here to a few articles that provide some additional information. One is titled “Life on the Road: the cost of distracted driving.” I think a more appropriate title world be “Death on the Road….” The other more recent article is “The Behavioral Economics of Distracted Driving” written in June 2021 by Kaylee Somerville. According to the Somerville article, present bias, the overemphasis of the present moment with neglect for future consequences, goes a long way in explaining why we reach for our phones while behind the wheel. Present bias takes many forms and explains choices related to drug use, overeating, smoking and neglect for public health guidelines. “Present bias leads us to engage in what economists refer to as 'hyperbolic discounting,' which describes how we favor immediate payoffs over future ones. Essentially, we overweight the present and underweight the future.” It is that immediate gratification concept.
The most revealing and recent article is the April 2023 one from the U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). That report indicates that distraction-related fatalities increased 12% from 2020 to 2021. Since this was during the pandemic, I wonder if more people were working behind the wheel.
That report, based on 2019 figures, estimated distraction by observing driver behavior in the real world. The study found that distraction was involved in 29% of all crashes, resulting in 10,546 fatalities, 1.3 million nonfatal injuries, and $98.2 billion in economic costs. From 2020 to 2022, distracted driving in the United States increased by over 20%. While I do not have all the latest figures, this suggests that the economic costs are well over $110 billion each year for distracted driving. Please do note that these economic costs are in terms of property damage and do not include the value of lives lost. That, again, is priceless.
The new laws in Michigan and Ohio are designed to reduce these damages and fatalities. Those who do not comply can be fined, which progressively gets stiffer with each offense. I am sure no one likes to pay fines, have an accident, or, worse, hurt someone or themselves. As I tell my 4-year-old Omari all the time when he is being resistant, “Just listen and do it, that’s all!” Obeying the law is simple enough, so let’s all do our best to comply – that’s all. The life you save may be your own.
Kojo Quartey is president of Monroe County Community College and an economist. He can be reached at kquartey@monroeccc.edu.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Kojo Quartey: Distracted driving is costly; lives lost are priceless
