Monday, December 15, 2008

Drop In Santa Barbara Accidents Attributed To Hands-Free Law

I couldn't find the article when digging around on the internet this morning, but I heard a news story this morning that said traffic accidents have dropped by almost 40% in Santa Barbara County, CA since the hands-free cell phone law went into effect earlier this year. And fatal accidents dropped by 72%!!! Wow, those are some results. I'll keep digging and post it if I can find it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those numbers surprise me. If anything, I expect more accidents right now because people are spending more effort disguising the phone conversations they're having. I noticed fewer drivers on phones when the law first became effective during the summer. Since then, with no evidence the law is being enforced, drivers are back to their old ways.

SRTC Staff said...

I've noticed it too Ben, a lot of people have gone back to talking on their regular phone and some don't even bother to try to hide it! I have seen several women drape their long hair over their phone. While it's not as obvious, you can still tell what they're doing if you look at them for any amount of time.


About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.