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US Youths Still Text While Driving Despite Knowing the Risks

Despite the general consensus being that doing, really, anything other than holding the wheel, while driving is bad, especially actions involving taking one’s eyes off the road. As a recent survey by Consumer Reports points out, most young American drivers are aware of the risk, yet still choose to do it anyway.
Man with mobile phone 1 photo
Photo: Fredrik Skold - Alamy
The study shows that around 29% of drivers aged 16 to 21 claim to have texted while driving in the past month, while a whopping 47% said they had engaged in phone conversations, without any form of handsfree device, while driving. Another interesting percentage is 48%, which represents young people who have seen at least one of their parents talking on the phone while driving, again without a handsfree device.

According to the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), 3,092 people were killed in “distracted-affected crashes” in 2010 (9.4% of all US road deaths). Another NHTSA survey made earlier this year, tells us that drivers with ages 18 to 20 are most prone to get in an accident due to attention-dividing tasks such as texting or talking on the phone, and the risk gets lower as the drivers’ ages increase.

The Consumer Report survey also pointed out that you drivers say that they are less likely to text or talk on the phone while driving if there’s at least one passenger in the car with them. So, the easiest way not to kill yourself while texting and driving is to get a friend to go with you anywhere and keep you company, for your safety and the safety of other people around you.
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