Texting and driving could kill innocent road users

Introduction and Background

Distracted driving is described as an epidemic sweeping our roads. This topic is receiving much attention internationally and we would like to discuss in this section of the Arrive Alive website the global impact and the risks of texting and driving!

It has been revealed that distracted driving in the US has claimed thousands of lives and injured a half-million people during 2008. In the past, there has been a debate whether communicating from a vehicle might be a manageable risk – today, with the dramatic increase in the use of hand-held devices it is accepted that one method of communicating – texting- has the potential of creating a true crash epidemic!

Vehicle manufacturers have joined the call to ban drivers from text messaging with cell phones and other hand-held devices. The wireless industry including cellphone manufacturers, carriers, and some Internet companies have expressed the belief that texting “is incompatible with safe driving.” It is estimated that there were more than 1 trillion text messages sent and received on wireless devices last year, including cell phones and smartphones.

At Government level in the US, the Obama Administration and Congress have addressed texting and distracted driving and all government employees are now banned from texting while driving whenever they are on the job, driving a federal vehicle, or using a government-supplied cell phone. This executive order affects nearly 4.5 million employees across the US, including postal workers and military personnel.

The simple truth is that roads are already dangerous enough with many existing threats to road safety! When we add cell phones and text messages to existing road risks, we are taking this beyond anything we should be dealing with on the roads. A study recently released by the Michigan State Medical Society claims that texting while driving makes driving six times more dangerous.

The National Highway Traffic Administration puts cell phone use at the top of the list of driver distractions. The Medical Society believes that texting while driving as part of cell phone use makes this act the most dangerous of all distractions. It’s incredibly dangerous, and it’s incredibly poor judgment to text while driving!

Distracted Driving and Statistics

Distracted driving is a broad term that includes a wide variety of driving behaviours. You can be distracted behind the wheel by talking on a mobile phone held in your hand, talking on a phone using an earpiece, or talking on a phone using a hands-free system embedded in your car. Research in the US showed that every day last year more than 750 000 vehicles were driven by someone using a hand-held cellphone. Distracted driving, however, wasn’t limited to that…

Distractions include eating or drinking a cup of coffee or adjusting the channel on your radio. You can be distracted by an iPod that’s not playing what you want, or a passenger, or a map or paper with directions on it. You can be distracted by a sports game on the radio, roadside distractions etc.

It is difficult to accurately document vehicle crashes caused by driver distractions, especially those distractions caused by texting. The last thing an accident victim might confess is that his texting caused the accident…

Most of the research on texting and driving is done in vehicle simulated driving conditions. Drivers are tested with motion sensors and computer graphics creating realistic motorway routes.

Some tests done in simulators suggest that talking on a phone, no matter how it’s done, sharply elevates the risk of an accident. Researchers studying brain imaging documented that listening alone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37%.

According to the US Department of Transportation, there were at least 515,000 injuries and 5,870 fatalities in the US in 2008 as a result of distracted driving-these numbers are taken from police reports, so the actual numbers could be quite a bit higher.

Even though there might not be sufficient statistics on how many people are driving and texting, there is enough information to say that texting shouldn’t be permitted while driving!

Why is texting such a threat to road safety?

Drivers generally understand that drink-driving is a serious risk, but have less of an understanding of the dangers of texting. Those who are aware of the impairment to their driving are not aware of how great this impairment is. The Transport Research Laboratory found that motorists who use their mobile phone to send text messages while on the road dramatically increase the likelihood of a collision.

Studies have suggested that texting while driving is riskier than driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A combination of factors leads to impairments of reaction time and vehicle control which places the driver at greater risk than having consumed alcohol and getting behind the steering wheel.

But what are these risks?

• Some safety advocates argue that the mere act of talking to someone, not in the car-whether the phone is up against your head, or in a cup holder while wearing an earpiece-is a risky overload of a driver’s cognitive functions.
• When texting, drivers are distracted by taking their hand off the wheel to use their phone, by trying to read small text on the phone display and by thinking about how to write their message.
• According to the National Roads and Motorists Association, text messaging drivers spent up to 400 per cent more time with their eyes on the phone instead of on the road.
• Texting reduces reaction times of drivers.
• The reaction times of texting driver deteriorated by 35 per cent, much worse than those who drank alcohol at the legal limit, who were 12 per cent slower, or those who had taken cannabis, who were 21 per cent lower.
• When texting, you tend to wander across the lane.
• The research found that drivers who sent or read text messages were more prone to drift out of their lane, with steering control by texting drivers 91 per cent poorer than that of drivers devoting their full concentration to the road.
• The Transport Research Laboratory concluded that text messages took on average 63 seconds to compose while the phone owner is driving- compared with 22 seconds when sent from a desk.
• In one minute, a car travels half a mile at town centre speeds and more than a mile on the motorway.
• Texting reduces the ability to maintain a safe following distance from the vehicle in front.

It is important to consider the effect of texting as a driver distraction especially with a focus on our younger drivers. Teenage drivers are a particular risk group considering that according to research surveys the average U.S. mobile teen now sends or receives an average of 2,899 text messages per month, with many of these texts sent and read from behind the wheel!