Study: Texting drivers six times more likely to crash

Posted by Benji Riggins on February 1, 2010 under Safety | Be the First to Comment

Drivers who send text messages are six times more likely to crash, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Utah.

Using a driving simulator, drivers in the study tended to decrease their minimum following distance when texting and also showed delayed reaction times. In fact, their median reaction times increased by 30 percent when they were texting and 9 percent when they talked on the phone. Drivers who texted also showed impairment in forward and lateral control.

According to the researchers, texting “requires drivers to switch their attention from one task to the other. When such attention-switching occurs as drivers compose, read, or receive a text, their overall reaction times are substantially slower than when they’re engaged in a phone conversation.”