I’ll admit it: I’ve checked email while driving. I’ve ordered food. I’ve scrolled through Twitter, maybe even written a post or two.
I’d probably make a phone call, too, every now and then, if I didn’t avoid actually talking on the phone whenever possible.
I know it’s against the law, though I’ve never been caught. I know it’s dangerous, though I haven’t been in an accident.
I remember to put the phone away most of the time now. But would the threat of a larger fine be enough to get me to think twice when I don’t? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.
I imagine many of you are the same. As the Legislature considers raising fines for distracted driving to severe levels, that’s something they have to keep in mind: As strange as it sounds, as a deterrent, increasing fines doesn’t work so well.
The bill before the Legislature would increase the penalty for using a handheld electronic device while driving from $85 to a whopping $500 for a first offense and from $325 to $1,000 for a second offense. Upon a third, the driver would temporarily lose their license.
The legislation builds on a 2019 law that prohibited using a phone while driving, itself an expansion of an earlier law that specifically banned texting while driving. Police in Maine have issued more than 3,000 tickets a year, and many more warnings, since it went into effect.
It’s hard to tell how much it is working. Certainly for some, the law is a deterrent. But even with all the violations that have been handed out, it’s a behavior that most people still get away with, and most people remain certain that it’s other people’s distracted driving, not their own, that is the problem.
Just a casual look at people in traffic shows how bad a problem distracted driving remains. Whether it’s on I-95 or at an intersection in the middle of town, you don’t have to wait long to see people with their faces glued to their phone.
So it’s no wonder that distracted driving is a factor in such a high percentage of accidents, or that lawmakers and law enforcement now want to penalize it more severely.
The focus, however, should be on reducing distracted driving, not punishing distracted drivers. They’re not the same thing.
How behavior changes in relation to a law broadly depends on several factors, most importantly the threat of punishment, the likelihood of being caught, and the timing of the punishment. The punishment could be severe, but it won’t be very effective if a person is unlikely to get caught, or if that punishment comes so long after the act that it becomes meaningless.
But while those three factors play off each other, they are not equal. The research is relatively inconclusive, but it mostly says that imposing severe penalties does little to deter behavior, particularly when there is a low risk of being caught.
We can see this, too, play out on the roads every day. Even though the fine for speeding is high, there is no shortage of people driving well over the posted limit. Speeding got even worse through the pandemic, not because penalties were lowered but because enforcement lagged and people felt they were less likely to be caught.
It’s likely that increasing fines would do very little to stop distracted driving.
And at a time when most Americans have less than $500 in savings, the fines could be devastating to those unlucky enough to get caught. Some would easily absorb it, but for others the result of the fine would be an empty bank account or the loss of their license — and maybe even their employment once they lose transportation.
So what do we do instead? First, we can build better roads, ones that force drivers to slow down and take in their surroundings, particularly in areas where there are a lot of pedestrians.
We can encourage the use of new technology, too. Hands-free devices are not without problems, but they are better than the alternative. Apps can be turned off while in transit. Manufacturers could stop building so many distractions into the cars themselves.
Ultimately, views toward distracted driving will have to go through the same transformation as drunk driving and seat belts. Laws ban driving while intoxicated or without a seat belt, but it wasn’t until both acts became socially unacceptable that they were really reduced in any meaningful way.
There can be a time in our near future when most drivers shut their phones in the center console without thinking, just as they now put on their seat belt.
That may be the only way to improve our relation to smartphones and their eye-grabbing apps, still so new to us, and to loosen the control they have over our attention.
In that case, when it comes to making roads safer, increasing fines is just a distraction.
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