Michigan's distracted driving law leads to fewer crashes, more lives saved

It's Distracted Driving Month

Attorney Mike Morse discussed Distracted Driving Month in Michigan.

(FOX 2) - Is Michigan's updated distracted driving law working?

Almost a year after the state's amended hands-free law went into effect, which outlawed all device usage while behind the wheel, data from a technology firm that tracks driver behavior in Michigan found on average a 12% reduction in distracted driving.

That amounts to 3,815 fewer crashes and 17 fewer deaths, Ryan McMahon of Cambridge Mobile Telematics said in an interview with the Michigan Department of Transportation.

It may not seem like a big difference, McMahon said, but a 12% drop correlates to $151 million in economic damage that didn't happen.

The data informing McMahon's team comes from drivers who agreed to have their phone usage tracked by his firm. It's used to help better understand driver behavior and track how rates of distracted driving change before and after laws like Michigan's hands-free rule go into place.

As police and officials with the Office of Highway Safety and Planning told FOX 2 last year, it can take time for drivers to adjust their behavior to fit a new law.

A graph showing the relationship of phone motion of seconds per hour in the month before the law took effect and 12 months after it went into effect.

Michigan's new law, which went into effect on June 30, was different from other states because it didn't come with a grace period. Some officers may still hand out warnings instead of tickets for violations of the rule, but enforcement officially began as soon as the law went into effect.

It represented a "pretty big shift" for drivers, the Oakland County sheriff said last December, but also would be much easier to crack down on cell phone usage while behind the wheel.

The first month after the law went into effect, Cambridge Mobile Telematics saw a 13.5% drop in distracted driving - a step in the right direction, it's senior vice president of strategy & corporate development said. But McMahon said the progress didn't last and over the next six months, rates of distracted driving started to climb back up.

The turning point came in the seventh month when a steep drop in distracted driving took place. Now, almost a year later, incidents are down 19% compared to before the law went into effect. It's not immediately clear why such a steep drop-off took place.

"So something changed in Michigan and I can't tell you what it is, but something changed," he said.

The graph showing the Michigan hands-free law percentage change compared to one month before the law went into effect.

He added that consistently educating and creating awareness around the updated law may be one reason.

Below is data provided by Cambridge Mobile Telematics that shows the impact of the hands-free law. The figures reveal less phone usage while in the car after the law went into effect, compared to before.