ON THE RISE

ON THE RISE

Though all distractions can endanger drivers’ safety, texting is the most alarming because it involves all three types of distraction — visual, manual (taking hands off steering wheel) and cognitive (taking your mind off what you’re doing):

In 2008, almost 20 percent of all crashes involved distraction.

Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted driver, and more than 500,000 were injured.

Inexperienced, young drivers under 20 have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes.

Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.

Using a cell phone while driving (hand-held or or hands-free) delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood-alcohol concentration at the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, University of Utah