Researchers with the (U.S.) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002.
Studies found that:
- risk of all accidents and of accidents with injuries increases by 38% for cellphone users, and heavy cellphone users are exposed to more than twice the risk as normal users, taking into account age, exposure to risk and driving habits.
- while some crashes during telephone use are expected based on exposure to driving alone, the actual number of crashes is about 72% higher than the expected number, as estimated by the method of induced exposure.
- Increased risk is likely the consequence of telephone use per se and is not attributable to differences in risk-related behavior between users and non-users of mobile telephones.
- Talking more than 50 minutes per month of cellular phones in a vehicle was associated with an increase of more than five times the risk of traffic collision, it cannot be cannot be concluded from the data that hand-held phones lead to higher risk than hands-free phone.
The rule of thumb here is if you drink don't drive, if you drive do not text, if you don't care about your life, please consider the life of others. if you really need to answer a phone call or text someone important, park your car for a while.
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