by Tanya Snyder, Streets Blog
Adults aged 18–64 who said they had talked on their cell phone while driving in the past 30 days, by country. Image: CDC
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Cell phone use while driving is an enormous safety problem in this country. NHTSA reports that distraction-related crashes kill more than nine people and injure more than 1,060 every day in the U.S. The effects of distraction are severe: According to U.S. DOT’s website on the issue, Distraction.gov, “Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds. At 55 mph, that’s like driving the length of an entire football field, blindfolded.”
[Updated link from one of our readers: https://www.sr22insurance.net/distracted-driving/
Thirty-three U.S. states and the District of Columbia have laws restricting cell phone use while driving, at least for teens, but these laws haven’t yet proven effective at getting people to change their behavior.
https://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/03/15/cdc-americans-drive-distracted-three-times-more-than-brits/