NU Online News Service, Sept. 28, 4:10 p.m. EDT

The insurance industry and safety agencies remain divided over whether laws to ban distracted driving are indeed reducing highway accidents and deaths.

In a statement, the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) and the National Safety Council (NSC) said they strongly disagreed with new research from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), a unit of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The HLDI released a report indicating that texting bans in several states have not reduced crashes.

The NSC declared, "Importantly, we disagree with any suggestion that the narrow findings of today's [HLDI] report are definitive evidence that all cell phone or texting bans do not and will not ever work."

The HLDI study follows previous research from IIHS and HLDI that reported laws banning handheld cell phone use, or hands-free laws, did not reduce crashes in selected states.

The IIHS and HLDI said hands-free cell phone use does not reduce the risks associated with cognitive distraction.

"Texting laws that are not effectively enforced could not be expected to have much safety benefit," the groups said in a statement today.

But PCI disagreed with the IIHS and HLDI reports.

"The enactment of these laws is positive," said Robert Passmore, senior director of personal lines for PCI. "However, it takes a coordinated strategy combining education, personal responsibility and enforcement to get results."

He said that PCI supports initiatives to increase the knowledge of motorists on the hazards of distracted driving and identify steps that motorists can take to prevent distractions from affecting their driving performance.

"Distracted driving is a serious problem, particularly with teens," Mr. Passmore said.

"But just as we have seen with other motor safety issues such as seatbelt use and drunk driving, there is no single answer to addressing the problem of distracted driving," he noted.

"Although cell phone use and texting grab the most attention, we encourage drivers to keep in mind that navigation systems, eating and drinking as well as grooming can all serve as distractions that compromise safe driving," Mr. Passmore said.

The HLDI study was released at the annual meeting of the Governors Highway Safety Association.

HLDI researchers calculated rates of collision claims for vehicles up to nine years old during the months immediately before and after driver texting was banned in California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Washington.

Comparable data was collected in nearby states where texting laws weren't substantially changed during the time span of the study.

"This controlled for possible changes in collision claim rates unrelated to the bans–changes in the number of miles driven due to the economy, seasonal changes in driving patterns, etc.," said Adrian Lund, president of both HLDI and IIHS.

"Texting bans haven't reduced crashes at all. In a perverse twist, crashes increased in three of the four states we studied after bans were enacted," Mr. Lund said. "It's an indication that texting bans might even increase the risk of texting for drivers who continue to do so despite the laws," he added.