Effects of a Driver Cellphone Ban on Overall, Handheld, and Hands-Free Cellphone Use While Driving: New Evidence from Canada
Corresponding Author
Christopher S. Carpenter
Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Correspondence to: Christopher Carpenter, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37235-1819, USA.
E-mail: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorHai V. Nguyen
Program in Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, Singapore
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Christopher S. Carpenter
Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Correspondence to: Christopher Carpenter, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37235-1819, USA.
E-mail: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorHai V. Nguyen
Program in Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, Singapore
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
We provide new evidence on the effects of increasingly common driver cellphone bans on self-reported overall, handheld, and hands-free cellphone use while driving by studying Ontario, Canada, which instituted a 3-month education campaign in November 2009 followed by a binding driver cellphone ban in February 2010. Using residents of Alberta as a control group in a difference-in-differences framework, we find visual and regression-based evidence that Ontario's cellphone ban significantly reduced overall and handheld cellphone use. We also find that the policies significantly increased hands-free cellphone use. The reductions in overall and handheld use are driven exclusively by women, whereas the increases in hands-free use are much larger for men. Our results provide the first direct evidence that cellphone bans have the unintended effect of inducing substitution to hands-free devices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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