Here’s a report sure to raise the ire of safety advocates, everywhere. According to a new study, an increase in the number of people driving while talking on the phone may have actually made us all safer.
The study, conducted by Saurabh Bhargava of the University of Chicago and Vikram Pathania from London’s School of Economics studied 440,000 made by California drivers over 11 days. They found no significant increase in crashes from those drivers using their cells. The study comes as the number of traffic accidents declines, in spite of an increase in those talking while driving.
So, how could “distracted driving” actually make you safer? Bhargava and Pathania have a few theories. First, there’s the fact that drivers are often extra cautious when they pick up the phone behind the while. Also, those who are crappy drivers while talking on their phone may just be crappy drivers in general.
Makes sense, I suppose. It also flies in the face of pretty much everything we’ve ever heard about distracted driving, ever–including a number of laws that have been passed over the past couple of years.
Of course, we can’t really recommend that anyone go out and actually try it–after all, who will keep the Bluetooth headset companies in business?
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