Hands on the wheel, eyes on the phone: The effect of smartphone usage fees on road safety

Devi Brands; Joris Klingen; Francis Ostermeijer

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104130

Hands on the wheel, eyes on the phone: The effect of smartphone usage fees on road safety

Devi Brands, Joris Klingen^*, Francis Ostermeijer

^*Corresponding author for this work

Spatial Economics

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We provide novel evidence on the effect of smartphone use on road accidents. We exploit variation in phone usage fees in the Netherlands following a change in European Union (EU) roaming regulations implemented in 2017. The growth rate of mobile data roaming increased substantially after the change, while vehicle kilometres travelled remained stable. This allows us to estimate a difference-in-differences model where non-Dutch drivers from the EU are treated, while Dutch drivers serve as control group. Our results suggest that around 10% of vehicles involved in accidents can be explained by the use of smartphones, and that these accidents mainly happen on urban roads.

Original language	English
Article number	104130
Pages (from-to)	1-23
Number of pages	23
Journal	European Economic Review
Volume	146
Early online date	5 May 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104130
Publication status	Published - Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
☆ We received valuable comments from Jos van Ommeren, Erik Verhoef, Hans Koster, Paul Koster, Niels Bos, Jiska Klein, Dan Graham, Csaba Pogonyi, Laila Ait Bihi Ouali, Niek Mouter, Hendrik Wolff and conference and seminar participants in Amsterdam (VU), Paris (ITEA), London (Imperial College), Budapest (hEART), Toulouse (SBCA), Jakarta (Universitas Indonesia), virtually (EEA and UEA), and from Robert Sauer (editor) and three anonymous referees. We also would like to thank Rijkswaterstaat Netherlands for granting us access to the data.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)

Keywords

Accident risk
Road safety
Smart phones
Urban roads

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104130

Persistent URL (handle)

Copy link address

Cite this

@article{0e253c3c174f47bd90d95608cdfe0556,

title = "Hands on the wheel, eyes on the phone: The effect of smartphone usage fees on road safety",

abstract = "We provide novel evidence on the effect of smartphone use on road accidents. We exploit variation in phone usage fees in the Netherlands following a change in European Union (EU) roaming regulations implemented in 2017. The growth rate of mobile data roaming increased substantially after the change, while vehicle kilometres travelled remained stable. This allows us to estimate a difference-in-differences model where non-Dutch drivers from the EU are treated, while Dutch drivers serve as control group. Our results suggest that around 10% of vehicles involved in accidents can be explained by the use of smartphones, and that these accidents mainly happen on urban roads.",

keywords = "Accident risk, Road safety, Smart phones, Urban roads",

author = "Devi Brands and Joris Klingen and Francis Ostermeijer",

note = "Funding Information: ☆ We received valuable comments from Jos van Ommeren, Erik Verhoef, Hans Koster, Paul Koster, Niels Bos, Jiska Klein, Dan Graham, Csaba Pogonyi, Laila Ait Bihi Ouali, Niek Mouter, Hendrik Wolff and conference and seminar participants in Amsterdam (VU), Paris (ITEA), London (Imperial College), Budapest (hEART), Toulouse (SBCA), Jakarta (Universitas Indonesia), virtually (EEA and UEA), and from Robert Sauer (editor) and three anonymous referees. We also would like to thank Rijkswaterstaat Netherlands for granting us access to the data. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Author(s)",

year = "2022",

month = jul,

doi = "10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104130",

language = "English",

volume = "146",

pages = "1--23",

journal = "European Economic Review",

issn = "0014-2921",

publisher = "Elsevier",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Hands on the wheel, eyes on the phone: The effect of smartphone usage fees on road safety

AU - Brands, Devi

AU - Klingen, Joris

AU - Ostermeijer, Francis

N1 - Funding Information: ☆ We received valuable comments from Jos van Ommeren, Erik Verhoef, Hans Koster, Paul Koster, Niels Bos, Jiska Klein, Dan Graham, Csaba Pogonyi, Laila Ait Bihi Ouali, Niek Mouter, Hendrik Wolff and conference and seminar participants in Amsterdam (VU), Paris (ITEA), London (Imperial College), Budapest (hEART), Toulouse (SBCA), Jakarta (Universitas Indonesia), virtually (EEA and UEA), and from Robert Sauer (editor) and three anonymous referees. We also would like to thank Rijkswaterstaat Netherlands for granting us access to the data. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)

PY - 2022/7

Y1 - 2022/7

N2 - We provide novel evidence on the effect of smartphone use on road accidents. We exploit variation in phone usage fees in the Netherlands following a change in European Union (EU) roaming regulations implemented in 2017. The growth rate of mobile data roaming increased substantially after the change, while vehicle kilometres travelled remained stable. This allows us to estimate a difference-in-differences model where non-Dutch drivers from the EU are treated, while Dutch drivers serve as control group. Our results suggest that around 10% of vehicles involved in accidents can be explained by the use of smartphones, and that these accidents mainly happen on urban roads.

AB - We provide novel evidence on the effect of smartphone use on road accidents. We exploit variation in phone usage fees in the Netherlands following a change in European Union (EU) roaming regulations implemented in 2017. The growth rate of mobile data roaming increased substantially after the change, while vehicle kilometres travelled remained stable. This allows us to estimate a difference-in-differences model where non-Dutch drivers from the EU are treated, while Dutch drivers serve as control group. Our results suggest that around 10% of vehicles involved in accidents can be explained by the use of smartphones, and that these accidents mainly happen on urban roads.

KW - Accident risk

KW - Road safety

KW - Smart phones

KW - Urban roads

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130182484&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85130182484&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104130

DO - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104130

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85130182484

SN - 0014-2921

VL - 146

SP - 1

EP - 23

JO - European Economic Review

JF - European Economic Review

M1 - 104130

ER -

Hands on the wheel, eyes on the phone: The effect of smartphone usage fees on road safety

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Persistent URL (handle)

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this