Distractions — especially talking with passengers and using
cellphones — play a far greater role in car crashes involving teen drivers than
has been previously understood, according to compelling new evidence cited by
safety researchers.
Good lord, did these people had to spend all this time to figure this out? Stating the obvious!
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed nearly 1,700
videos that capture the actions of teen drivers in the moments before a crash.
It found that distractions were a factor in nearly 6 of 10 moderate to severe
crashes. That's four times the rate in many previous official estimates that
were based on police reports.
The study is unusual because researchers rarely have access
to crash videos that clearly show what drivers were doing in the seconds before
impact as well as what was happening on the road. AAA was able to examine more
than 6,842 videos from cameras mounted in vehicles, showing both the driver and
the simultaneous view out the windshield.
The foundation got the videos from Lytx Inc., which offers
programs that use video to coach drivers in improving their behavior and
reducing collisions. Crashes or hard-braking events were captured in 1,691 of
the videos.
They show driver distraction was a factor in 58 percent of
crashes, especially accidents in which vehicles ran off the road or had
rear-end collisions. The most common forms of distraction were talking or
otherwise engaging with passengers and using a cellphone, including talking,
texting and reviewing messages.
Other forms of distraction observed in the videos included
drivers looking away from the road at something inside the vehicle, 10 percent;
looking at something outside the vehicle other than the road ahead, 9 percent;
singing or moving to music, 8 percent; grooming, 6 percent; and reaching for an
object, 6 percent.
In one video released by AAA, a teenage boy is seen trying
to navigate a turn on a rain-slicked road with one hand on the wheel and a
cellphone held to his ear in the other hand. The car crosses a lane of traffic
and runs off the road, stopping just short of railroad tracks that run parallel
to the road.
In another video, a driver on a lonely two-lane road at
night is shown looking down at an electronic device, apparently texting. While
his eyes are off the road, the car crosses the opposite lane, leaves the road
and appears about to strike a mailbox.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com