What’s the big deal about cell-phone use while driving?? – Ontario’s new
laws banning cell-phone and texting activities while driving, will be a
significant inconvenience to some of us. But is the inconvenience worth
the trouble??

Now there is greater evidence that cell-phone usage and texting may be
among the most common distractions leading up to highway accidents.

A study recently conducted by the Virginia Tech Transport Institute used
on-board cameras to monitor drivers during various tasks, particularly
analysing the direction and duration of eye glances.

The study concludes that using a cell-phone (particularly for dialling)
can increase the chance of an accident by nearly 3 times as that of a
non-distracted driver; it’s almost 6 times higher for truck drivers.
But the greatest threat is texting because of the time that the driver’s
eyes are not on the road – texting while driving a truck increased the
likelihood of an accident by 23 times!

Interestingly, this study disputes the notion that any “cognitively
intense” task while driving can be as dangerous as dialling a
cell-phone, or texting. Drivers involved in emotional conversations or
listening to audio books, did not demonstrate the same level of
distraction, probably because their eyes generally remained on the road.
However, for those text-messaging while driving at highway speeds, the
results are sobering: the length of a football field was travelled while
eyes were momentarily averted to their hand-held unit.

Too many drivers are killed and injured on Ontario’s roads – any
reasonable steps taken to improve those stats is worth it. And it
appears that although inconvenient, the Ontario government is forcing
drivers to better manage risk.

To view Randy Bushey’s Blog go to: www.kibl.com

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.