Study: In-car texting is extremely dangerous. Duh!

by Stevie Smith - Dec 22 2009, 04:44

Talking hands-free on the phone while driving can be distracting. Talking directly into a phone held in your hand is risky at best. However, manually inputting a text message into a handset or reading an inbound communication is just plain dangerous… and we shouldn’t need a university study to tell us so.

That being said, one such study carried out by a research team at the University of Utah has shown that drivers who compose mobile phone text messages while behind the wheel of a car are six times more likely to be involved in a crash than those who are concentrating wholly on the road ahead.

The virtual driving simulation study, which was carried out across 40 young adults aged between 19 and 23 (20 male, 20 female), also discovered that texting carries more risk than talking directly into a mobile handset or a passenger within the car. It also noted that drivers distracted by reading incoming text alerts were significantly slower in applying their vehicle’s brakes.

“[Texting] requires drivers to switch their attention from one task to the other,” outlined the researchers regarding their findings. “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.” 

Other potentially dangerous ramifications connected to the sending, reading and composing of text messages while controlling a car include driving too close to the vehicle in front and even weaving erratically across road lanes.

The University of Utah study can be found in its entirety in the journal Human Factors.

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