texting

University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, over at the New York Times' Economix blog, dug up a 2012 study by Cheng Cheng of Texas A&M University that tells the world nothing new about the currently confused state of laws against distracted driving, and in particular bans on handheld phone use. "Perhaps lawmakers overestimated the benefits of regulating this sort of driver behavior," Mulligan writes. Or perhaps lawmakers didn't pass laws that effectively protect vulnerable road users from dangerous, distracted drivers.