page_title: Mobile phones and driving safety
section_title: Prevalence
hierarchical_section_title: Mobile phones and driving safety / Studies / Prevalence
caption_attribution_description: English: Various laws and restrictions on mobile phone use whilst driving
context_page_description: Mobile phone use while driving is common but it is widely considered dangerous due to its potential for causing distracted driving and crashes. Due to the number of crashes that are related to conducting calls on a phone and texting while driving, some jurisdictions have made the use of calling on a phone while driving illegal. Many jurisdictions have enacted laws to ban handheld mobile phone use. Nevertheless, many jurisdictions allow use of a hands-free device. Driving while using a hands-free device is not safer than using a handheld phone to conduct calls, as concluded by case-crossover studies, epidemiological, simulation, and meta-analysis. In some cases restrictions are directed only at minors, those who are newly qualified license holders, or to drivers in school zones. In addition to voice calling, activities such as texting while driving, web browsing, playing video games, or phone use in general can also increase the risk of a crash.
  In the United States, automobile crashes due to distracted driving are increasing. The leading cause of distracted driving is cell phones.
context_section_description: The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), the provincial automobile insurance association in Quebec, conducted a study on driving and cellphones in 2003. Questionnaires were sent to 175,000 drivers and analysis was done on the 36,078 who responded. The questionnaire asked about driving habits, risk exposure, collisions over the past 24 months, socio-demographic information, and cell phone use. Questionnaires were supported with data from cell phone companies and crash records held by police. The study found that the overall relative risk (RR) of having a crash for cell phone users when compared to non-cell phone users averaged 1.38 across all groups. When adjusted for distance driven per year and other crash risk exposures, RR was 1.11 for men and 1.21 for women. They also found that increased cell phone use correlated with an increase in RR. When the same data were reanalyzed using a Bayesian approach, the calculated RR of 0.78 for those making less than 1 call/day and 2.27 for those with more than 7 calls/day was similar to cohort analysis. When the data were reanalyzed using case-crossover analysis, RR was calculated at a much higher 5.13. The authors expressed concern that misclassification of phone call and cell phone usage is due to reporting errors of the exact time of the collisions was a major source of bias with all case-crossover analysis of this issue.
  In March 2011 a US insurance company, State Farm Insurance, announced the results of a study which showed 19% of drivers surveyed accessed the Internet on a smart phone while driving. In September 2010, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a report on distracted driving fatalities for 2009. The NHTSA considers distracted driving to include some of the following as distractions: other occupants in the car, eating, drinking, smoking, adjusting radio, adjusting environmental control, reaching for object in car, and cell phone use. In 2009 in the US, there was a reported 5,474 people killed by distracted drivers. Of those 995 were considered to be killed by drivers distracted by cell phones. The report doesn't state whether this under or over represents the level of cell phone use amongst drivers, and whether there is a causal relationship.
  A 2003 study of US crash data states that driver inattention is estimated to be a factor in 25% to 50% of all police-reported crashes. Driver distraction, a sub-category of inattention, has been estimated to be a contributing factor in 8% to 13% of all crashes. Of distraction-related crashes, cell phone use may range from 1.5 to 5% of contributing factors. However, large unknowns in each category may increase the inaccuracy of these estimates. A 2001 study sponsored by the American Automobile Association recorded "Unknown Driver Attention Status" for 41.5% of crashes, and "Unknown Distraction" in 8.6% of all distraction related crashes. According to NHTSA, "There is clearly inadequate reporting of crashes".
  Currently, being distracted by an "outside person, object, event" (commonly known as "rubbernecking") is the most reported cause of distraction-related crashes, followed by "adjusting radio/cassette/CD". "Using/dialing cell phone" is eighth. A 2003 study by the University of Utah psychology department measured response time, following distance, and driving speed of a control group, subjects at the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) limit of 0.08%, and subjects involved in cell phone conversations. As the study notes; "... this is the third in a series of studies that we have conducted evaluating the effects of cell phone use on driving using the car following procedure (see also Strayer & Drews, 2004; and Strayer et al., 2003). Across these three studies, 120 participants performed in both baseline and cell phone conditions. Two of the participants in our studies were involved in a crash in baseline conditions, whereas 10 participants were involved in a crash when they were conversing on a cell phone." However, no drunk driver had a crash in any test. After controlling for drivin
caption: Various laws/regulations in relation to mobile phone use whilst driving worldwide
exif: {}