Texting ban, one year later: behaviors are slow to change?

By Katie Leslie and Victoria Loe Hicks

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cobb County Police Sgt. Dana Pierce issued his first texting-while-driving citation on the first day that the law was enforced last summer. He caught the female driver red-handed, or -thumbed, as it were, as she texted at a red light.

The woman looked up, saw his marked car and mouthed: "Oh $&#%," he recalled.

Catching people that easily -- or catching them at all -- is rare.

Since the law went into effect on July 1, 2010, the Georgia State Patrol has issued at least 105 tickets to texting scofflaws, said spokesman Lt. Paul Cosper.

Cobb County Police have issued 26 tickets. Fulton County Police: zero. A number of the metro area's police departments did not provide requested data.

Meanwhile, Georgians continue to be injured or killed in wrecks in which texting is believed to have been a factor.

Texting may have led to a double-fatal crash in Newnan in late May, Cosper said. A 16-year-old driver ran a red light and hit another car just before midnight, killing both drivers. Friends of the teen victim have said they believe the driver was distracted by a text.

“Some people refer to it as being “intexticated,” Cosper said.

Does the meager tally of citations make the law, which carries penalties of a $150 fine and one point on the offender's license, a failure?

Not to hear the people responsible for enacting and promoting it.

"You have to remember that the intent was to change behavior," said state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, who promoted the bill authored by state Sen. Jack Murphy, R-Cumming.

Peake said he knows first-hand that an understanding of how dangerous the practice is won't necessarily stop someone. "I was the world's worst," he said.

Now, based on what he hears from friends and family members, "I seriously believe we have changed the behavior."

Monica Maurer, who sees people driving erratically almost daily as she commutes to Georgia State University, disagrees. At least half the people she rides with still routinely text and drive, she said.

"If it is helping, it's not helping much," the 23-year-old student said of the ban -- which, incidentally, she thought applied only to people younger than 18.

Often, her friends won't desist even when she asks them. "They say, ‘I'm fine, I know what I'm doing,'" she said. "It freaks me out."

So who's right?

It's impossible to know, many experts said.

Twelve months isn't enough time to measure changes in behaviors such as texting while driving -- if it's possible to measure them at all. Because one thing almost everyone agrees on is that texting while driving is exceptionally hard to spot.

"The first thing someone's going to do when they see a marked patrol car is put down their cell phone," acknowledged Harris Blackwood, head of the Governor's office of Highway Safety.

Even if police think they've spotted an offender, Pierce said, "it's one of those things where the officer has to ask, how do you prove that in court? Do I fight that fight if I'm not really not quite sure what I’m seeing?"

Spencer Pumpelly of Atlanta makes his living in the auto racing industry as a coach and consultant. He considers texting while driving extremely dangerous, but he also considers the law "B.S."

He believes the only people likely to get caught are those observed by a police officer texting at a red light -- those, in effect, who pose the least danger.

"Why penalize someone who can do it safely?" Pumpelly asked.

When it comes to measuring whether fewer people are texting while driving, a whole new set of difficulties arises, said Lisa Gardner, an assistant professor of statistics at Drake University in Iowa who has studied the issue.

"It's hard to quantify the impact of risk-management strategies, because when you succeed the risky behavior doesn't happen," said Gardner, who got her doctorate from Georgia State.

Sort of like trying to prove a negative.

GSP's Cosper also noted that law enforcement officials don't yet have data from prior years to compare against, thus determining success or failure is premature.

Carol Cotton, director of the the University of Georgia's Traffic Safety Research and Evaluation Group, said the texting ban is the catalyst for a culture shift.

"In the short term, the most effective way to change behavior is a strong penalty which increases the deterrent effect," she said.

But in the long term, she and other experts explained, behavioral changes occur through education and shifts in what society will tolerate.

Consider other auto safety measures, such as the use of seat belts or child seats, said Blackwood of the governor's highway safety office.

"The generation that is starting to drive now grew up knowing nothing but the use of those," he said. What was once a rarity, perhaps even met with resistance, is now second nature.

In the meantime, Blackwood, like most interviewed for this story, said he's given up texting behind the wheel.

For real. Almost completely.

"If my phone buzzes, I occasionally glance over, but then I think, ‘No, I can't do this,' " he said.

"Only if I can't avoid it," Pumpelly said.

"I kind of reserve it for red lights," Maurer said.

"Hardly at all," Peake said. "Only in emergencies."