Evidence of Effects of Cell Phone Use on Injury Crashes: Crash Risk Is Four Times Higher when Driver Is Using a Phone
 
Common sense as well as experience tells us that handling and dialing cell phones while driving can compromise safety, and evidence is accumulating that phone conversations also increase crash risk. New research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) quantifies the added risk serious enough to injure themselves. The increased risk was estimated by comparing phone use within 10 minutes before an actual crash occurred with use by the same driver during the prior week. Subjects were drivers treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries suffered in crashes from April 2002 to July 2004.
 
"The main finding of a fourfold increase in injury crash risk was consistent across groups of drivers," says Anne McCartt, Institute Vice President for research and an author of the study. "Male and female drivers experienced about the same increase in risk from using a phone. So did drivers older and younger than 30 and drivers using hand-held and hands-free phones."
 
Weather wasnąt a factor in the crashes, almost 75 percent of which occurred in clear conditions. Eighty-nine percent of the crashes involved other vehicles. More than half of the injured drivers reported that their crashes occurred within 10 minutes of the start of the trip.
 
Hands-Free Versus Hand-Held The results suggest that banning hand-held phone use won't necessarily enhance safety if drivers simply switch to hands-free phones. Injury crash risk didn't differ from one type of reported phone use to the other.

Information from

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and ACTS Oregon

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