Auto Club Study Shows Decrease In California Drivers Texting

September 26, 2009 (by Horatio Algren) According to reports by personal injury lawyers in Los Angeles, a recent study done on drivers obeying the California texting ban has decreased since the ban has gone into affect according to the Automobile Club of Southern California.

The Automobile Club of Southern California has done a series of on the street surveys to show if there has been a decrease in driver texting since the California ban making it illegal to text message while driving in June of 2008. They are the first organization to study the effects that a text messaging ban has on drivers, and driver distraction.

The study was done using seven road side sites in Orange County that began prior to the ban and then in May and June of this year, there were approximately 16,500 vehicles passing the sites that were observed at different times of the day. The sites were observed in the late morning, early afternoon and during evening commutes, and they were done on urban, suburban and city roads, as well as on freeway entrances and exits.

What the survey showed was approximately 1.4 percent of drivers were text messaging before the ban went into effect and then in May and July it shows that there were approximately 0.4 percent of drivers still text messaging while driving. This according to the Automobile Club of Southern California is about a 70 percent difference in the amount of drivers illegally text messaging.

Through the month of August according to the Automobile Club of Southern California the California Highway Patrol has issued 1,061 tickets for text messaging statewide. The club also stated that it is sometimes difficult for the authorities to ticket drivers that are text messaging, because they are able to do it below the dashboard, which makes it impossible to see.