Shut Up! I'm Driving
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/522/2
By Mary Beckman
ScienceNOW Daily News
22 May 2007
Add an unlikely item to the list of road hazards. Sure, cell phones,
big SUVs, and tailgaters are dangerous--but keep your eyes peeled on
the carpool lane, too. New research shows that drivers with a
passenger in their vehicles up their risk of an accident by 60%. Two
or more passengers double the odds.
Driving simulations and laboratory studies show that talking on cell
phones and text messaging increase a driver's risk of a crash. But
only a few studies look at what really happens out on the roadways.
Previous studies found that drivers using cell phones were four times
more likely to have an accident than those who weren't yakking on
their mobiles. Medical epidemiologist Suzanne McEvoy of the
University of Sydney, Australia, wondered how that compared to having
passengers in the car.
McEvoy and colleagues went to local hospitals and interviewed
accident victims who came into the emergency room. They collected
data on 274 people who had non-life-threatening injuries from an
automobile accident, asking them how many passengers they had been
carrying and whether they were interacting in some way with the
passengers. They compared these volunteers to 1096 drivers they
recruited from the nearest gas stations to the accidents at the same
time of day and day of the week, who served as a control group. The
researchers also acquired cell phone records so they could verify
calls made near the time of the accidents.
The team found that having at least one passenger in the car
increased the risk of the driver getting into an injurious accident
by 60%, about the same increase in risk as incurred on wet roads.
Roughly a third of the injured drivers reported talking or
interacting with the passenger in some way at the time of the
accident. Having two or more passengers doubled the risk of an
accident. The researchers also found that, as expected, talking on
the phone quadrupled the risk of having an injurious accident.
Talking on the phone is more dangerous, McEvoy speculates, because
passengers are at least aware of the traffic conditions and can stop
talking when things get rough. This is the first time such
comparisons have been made in the same real-life situations, the
authors report today in Accident Analysis and Prevention.
Passengers are not always a problem, points out cognitive
psychologist Frank Drews of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
In laboratory studies, Drews has found that some passengers help
drivers avoid accidents by paying attention to traffic. The new study
was too small to explore that distinction, Drews says, so further
research would be necessary before suggesting policy decisions for
drivers.
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