Texting while driving more dangerous than thought: study

Texting or emailing while driving is more dangerous than previously thought, according to a new study of the behavior.

"Essentially texting while driving doubles a driver's reaction time," Christine Yager, who led the study at Texas A&M University's Texas Transportation Institute, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"That makes a driver less able to respond to sudden roadway dangers."

For the study, 42 drivers between the ages of 16 and 54 drove on an 11-mile test track course while sending or receiving text messages, and drove it again while focusing completely on the road.

Drivers were asked to stop when they saw a flashing yellow light, and their reaction times were recorded, Yager said.

The typical time it took a driver who was not texting to respond to the flashing light was one to two seconds. But when the driver was texting, the reaction time extended to three to four seconds, and the texting motorist was 11 times more likely to miss the flashing light altogether.

Texting while driving responsible for 16,000 deaths in 6 years The University of North Texas Health Science Center has looked at traffic data from the Fatality Accident Reporting System and texting data from the FCC and CTIA, and - after some hefty number crunching - has come to the conclusion that texting while driving is responsible for accidents that claimed 16,141 lives during the period of 2001 - 2007.

I don’t think you need me to tell you that this is an alarmingly large number.

The original article in the LA Times also highlights some interesting factoids from the article:

The percentage of all traffic deaths caused by distracted driving rose from 11% in 1999 to 16% in 2008.

Distracted-driving crashes are more common in urban areas. Overall, 40% of all crashes happened in urban areas in 2008, up from 33% a decade earlier.

Only one-third of Americans had a cellphone in 1999. By 2008, 91% of us did.

The average monthly volume of text messages was 1 million in 2002. By 2008, it was 110 million.

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Simon Chester

Yager said the reaction time was the same whether the driver was typing a message or reading one.

"The act of reading and writing a text message are equally impairing and equally dangerous," she said.

Yager said the research differed from previous studies in that it involved participants driving actual vehicles, not driving simulators.

A previous well-respected study done on a lab simulator showed drivers reacted in less than one second when they were not texting and to stimulus while texting in 1-2 seconds, Yager said. The 3-4 second lag time in the actual driving study is significant because in that period at highway speeds one can travel the length of a football field, she said.