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

Christopher S. Carpenter and Hai V. Nguyen

Health Economics, 2015, vol. 24, issue 11, 1452-1467

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.

Date: 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3098

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