According to a Virginia Tech study, it is estimated that drivers are 23 times more likely to get into an automobile accident when they text, which is why lawmakers in many U.S. states have called for texting while driving to be against the law.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that one-third of U.S. drivers sometimes text while driving. Approximately 24% of car accidents are caused by texting or other mobile phone use. Inexperienced teenage drivers are among the most likely to text while driving (in the CDC study, over 50 percent of teenage participants reported doing so). Likewise, car accidents are the leading cause of death for teens, with over 3,000 teenagers dying each year specifically in texting-related crashes.
More about distracted driving:
- Drivers in the U.S. and Portugal are the most likely to drive while using mobile devices – 69 percent of American drivers and 59 percent of Portuguese drivers report doing so.
- The average amount of time a driver’s eyes are off the road when texting is five seconds, which is over twice as long as is considered safe.
- About 660,000 drivers are estimated to be texting or talking on a mobile phone at any given time in the United States.