Texting and mobile use responsible for 1 in 4 accidents: study
11 Jul 2011
According to a new report, driving distractions mainly from cell phones and other electronic devices, are associated with up to 25 per cent of US car crashes.
The US study by the Governors Highway Safety Association GHSA, a non-profit group working to improve traffic safety, based its findings from research from over 350 scientific papers published since 2000.
It showed that up to half the time, drivers were distracted by cell phones and the consequences ranged from minor to fatal injury. While the use of cell phones ups the risk of accidents, crash risk is a bigger than cell phone use while driving.
GHSA has found that despite laws in some states banning hand-held cell phone use or texting while driving, about one-eighth of all drivers in recent studies report texting while driving. This is up from less than 1 per cent in 2009.
What could be especially worrisome is that texting while driving may actually be higher if we look at driving in a longer period according to the GHSA.
In three surveys of teenage drivers and older 24 per cent drivers reported texting while driving in the last 30 days while 13 per cent of drivers age 18 to 24 reported texting while driving every day.
"Despite all that has been written about driver distraction, there is still a lot that we do not know," GHSA executive director Barbara Harsha said in a statement.
"Clearly, more studies need to be done addressing both the scope of the problem and how to effectively address it."
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data shows that in 2009 alone, around 5,500 fatalities and about half a million injuries resulted from crashes involving distracted drivers.
