Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Distracted Driving is a Huge Risk Factor

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Georgetown found that 16% of driving fatalities were caused by distracted driving. In 2009, 515,000 people were injured while not paying attention to the road. When texting, drivers are not seeing the road 4.6 out of 6 seconds. Texting drivers had accident rates 23 times as high as nontexting. Truck driver texting was twice as dangerous. Cell phones also increased the risk, and there was no difference with hands-free phones. Please pull over. You might be putting us all at risk.

See JAMA (click here), 4/14/10, p. 1419-1420.

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