Texting while driving: now a proven deadly habit

Photo courtesy http://texting-while-driving.org/

A study by the University of North Texas Health Center has shown what may be unsurprising to a lot of people: texting while driving has killed a lot of people.

The study looked at United States drivers between 1999 and 2008, and amongst other things found:

• After declining from 1999 to 2005, fatalities from distracted driving increased 28% after 2005, rising from 4572 fatalities to 5870 in 2008
• Crashes increasingly involved male drivers driving alone in collisions with roadside obstructions in urban areas.
• Increasing texting volumes resulted in more than 16000 additional road fatalities from 2001 to 2007.

Of course, the challenge will be somehow convincing the huge number of driving texters out there that they in fact aren’t better drivers than the sixteen thousand people who have died already. There are already sites devoted to the issue, such as this one.

It’d be interesting to know what the gender breakdown of the fatalities were i.e. are males the primary offenders like they are with accidents more widely? Or is it something that females dominate?

Would love to get your thoughts / close call stories.

via [LA Times]