IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v24y2015i11p1452-1467.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of a Driver Cellphone Ban on Overall, Handheld, and Hands‐Free Cellphone Use While Driving: New Evidence from Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher S. Carpenter
  • Hai V. Nguyen

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher S. Carpenter & Hai V. Nguyen, 2015. "Effects of a Driver Cellphone Ban on Overall, Handheld, and Hands‐Free Cellphone Use While Driving: New Evidence from Canada," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(11), pages 1452-1467, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:11:p:1452-1467
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3098
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3098
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.3098?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saurabh Bhargava & Vikram S. Pathania, 2013. "Driving under the (Cellular) Influence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 92-125, August.
    2. Christopher S. Carpenter & Mark Stehr, 2011. "Intended and Unintended Consequences of Youth Bicycle Helmet Laws," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 305-324.
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    4. Jonathan Gruber & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2006. "Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Yew-Kwang Ng & Lok Sang Ho (ed.), Happiness and Public Policy, chapter 6, pages 109-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Nicholas E. Burger & Daniel T. Kaffine & Bo Yu, 2013. "Did California's hand-held cell phone ban reduce accidents?," Working Papers 2013-08, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.
    6. Michael Baker & Jonathan Gruber & Kevin Milligan, 2008. "Universal Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Being," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(4), pages 709-745, August.
    7. Gruber, Jonathan & Koszegi, Botond, 2004. "Tax incidence when individuals are time-inconsistent: the case of cigarette excise taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1959-1987, August.
    8. Rahi Abouk & Scott Adams, 2013. "Texting Bans and Fatal Accidents on Roadways: Do They Work? Or Do Drivers Just React to Announcements of Bans?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 179-199, April.
    9. Timothy G. Conley & Christopher R. Taber, 2011. "Inference with "Difference in Differences" with a Small Number of Policy Changes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 113-125, February.
    10. Peltzman, Sam, 1975. "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(4), pages 677-725, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vinish Shrestha, 2019. "Cigarette Prices and Driving Fatalities Among Youths," Working Papers 2019-02, Towson University, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2019.
    2. Wright, Nicholas A. & Dorilas, Ernest, 2022. "Do Cellphone Bans Save Lives? Evidence From Handheld Laws on Traffic Fatalities," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Shrestha, Vinish, 2019. "Cigarette prices and driving fatalities among youths," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    4. Liu, Chenhui & Lu, Chaoru & Wang, Shefang & Sharma, Anuj & Shaw, John, 2019. "A longitudinal analysis of the effectiveness of California’s ban on cellphone use while driving," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 456-467.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher S. Carpenter & Casey Warman, 2019. "What Do Bicycle Helmet Laws Do? Evidence From Canada," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(2), pages 832-854, April.
    2. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Murphy, Richard, 2016. "Ill Communication: Technology, distraction & student performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 61-76.
    3. French, Michael & Gumus, Gulcin, 2024. "Hit-and-Run or Hit-and-Stay? Unintended Effects of a Stricter BAC Limit," IZA Discussion Papers 16774, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Devi Brands & Joris Klingen & Francis Ostermeijer, 2020. "Hands on the Wheel, Eyes on the Phone: the Effect of Smart Phone Usage on Road Safety," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-024/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Kyle Rozema, 2021. "Does the Bar Exam Protect the Public?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(4), pages 801-848, December.
    6. Aney, Madhav S. & Ho, Christine, 2019. "Deadlier road accidents? Traffic safety regulations and heterogeneous motorists’ behavior," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 155-171.
    7. Bullinger, Lindsey Rose, 2019. "The Effect of Paid Family Leave on Infant and Parental Health in the United States," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 101-116.
    8. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    9. Alejandro T. Moreno-Okuno & Emiko Masaki, 2011. "Alcohol Myopia and Risk Taking," Department of Economics and Finance Working Papers EC201102, Universidad de Guanajuato, Department of Economics and Finance.
    10. David Roodman & James G. MacKinnon & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen & Matthew D. Webb, 2019. "Fast and wild: Bootstrap inference in Stata using boottest," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(1), pages 4-60, March.
    11. Ayyagari Padmaja & Sindelar Jody L, 2010. "The Impact of Job Stress on Smoking and Quitting: Evidence from the HRS," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, March.
    12. Christina Gathmann & Björn Sass, 2012. "Taxing Childcare: Effects on Family Labor Supply and Children," CESifo Working Paper Series 3776, CESifo.
    13. Chong, Alberto & Restrepo, Pascual, 2017. "Regulatory protective measures and risky behavior: Evidence from ice hockey," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 1-11.
    14. Meinhofer, Angélica & Witman, Allison E. & Hinde, Jesse M. & Simon, Kosali, 2021. "Marijuana liberalization policies and perinatal health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    15. Anand, Vaibhav, 2022. "The Value of Forecast Improvements: Evidence from Advisory Lead Times and Vehicle Crashes," MPRA Paper 114491, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Christophe Bellégo & Romain De Nijs, 2020. "The Unintended Consequences of Antipiracy Laws on Markets with Asymmetric Piracy: The Case of the French Movie Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1064-1086, December.
    17. Harju, Jarkko & Kosonen, Tuomas & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2018. "Firm types, price-setting strategies, and consumption-tax incidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 48-72.
    18. Hansen, Bruce E. & Lee, Seojeong, 2019. "Asymptotic theory for clustered samples," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 210(2), pages 268-290.
    19. Paul J. Gertler & Manisha Shah, 2011. "Sex Work and Infection: What's Law Enforcement Got to Do with It?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 811-840.
    20. Giovanni Immordino & Anna Maria C. Menichini & Maria Grazia Romano, 2015. "Inefficient Taxation of Sin Goods," CSEF Working Papers 412, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:11:p:1452-1467. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.