Texting while driving is the act of composing, sending, reading text messages, email, or making other similar use of the web on a mobile phone while operating a motor vehicle. The practice has been viewed by many people and authorities as dangerous. It has also been ruled as the cause of some motor vehicle accidents, and in some places has been outlawed or restricted. Texting while driving leads to increased distraction behind the wheel. In 2006, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group conducted a survey of more than 900 teens from more than 26 high schools nationwide. The results showed that 37% of students found texting to be "very" or "extremely" distracting. A study by the American Automobile Association discovered that 46% of teens admitted to being distracted behind the wheel because of texting. This distraction is alarming, because 40% of all American teens say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put people in danger.[1] The risk of crashing while texting driving increases by 23 times, because reading or sending a text diverts the driver's eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds—the same as driving the length of a football field, blind, at 55 mph.[2]
Although talking on a mobile phone while operating a vehicle is considered dangerous, the threat really became an issue when Short Message Service, or texting, was introduced.[3] Texting has become a social norm fairly quickly since the year 2000, as most cell phone plans include a text messaging package. There has been a significant rise in smart phone sales with the popularity of the BlackBerry and iPhone, which allows people to communicate while they are doing practically anything. It cannot be contested that text messaging and other forms of text communication on mobile phones offer a level of convenience that cannot be matched. The dilemma is at what point do we chose safety over convenience.[4] Many studies have linked texting while driving to the cause of life-threatening accidents due to driver distraction. The International Telecommunication Union states that “texting, making calls, and other interaction with in-vehicle information and communication systems while driving is a serious source of driver distraction and increases the risk of traffic accidents”.[4]
A 2009 experiment with Car and Driver magazine editor Eddie Alterman that took place at a deserted air strip showed that texting while driving had a greater impact on safety than driving drunk. While legally drunk, Alterman's stopping distance from 70 mph increased by 4 feet; by contrast, reading an e-mail added 36 feet, and sending a text added 70 feet.[5] While celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey have campaigned against texting while driving, there are reports that the message has not been getting through to teenagers.[6]
In the UK in 2009, Gwent Police worked with film maker Peter Watkins-Hughes and production company Zipline Creative to create the graphic short film "Cow", as part of a campaign to stop texting while driving.[7] The film earned honors in the Advertising Age's weekly Creativity Top 5 videos[8] and became an overnight worldwide internet hit after being shown on the American news program The Today Show.[9]

The scientific literature on the dangers of driving while sending a text message from a mobile phone, or driving while texting, is limited. A simulation study at the Monash University Accident Research Centre provided strong evidence that retrieving and, in particular, sending text messages has a detrimental effect on a number of safety-critical driving measures. Specifically, negative effects were seen in detecting and responding correctly to road signs, detecting hazards, time spent with eyes off the road, and (only for sending text messages) lateral position. Mean speed, speed variability, lateral position when receiving text messages, and following distance showed no difference.[10] A separate, yet unreleased simulation study at the University of Utah found a sixfold increase in distraction-related accidents when texting.[11]
The low number of scientific studies may be indicative of a general assumption that if talking on a mobile phone increases risk, then texting also increases risk, and probably more so. 89% of U.S. adults think that text messaging while driving is "distracting, dangerous and should be outlawed."[12] The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released polling data that show that 87% of people consider texting and e-mailing while driving a "very serious" safety threat, almost equivalent to the 90% of those polled who consider drunk driving a threat. Despite the acknowledgement of the dangers of texting behind the wheel, about half of drivers 16 to 24 say they have texted while driving, compared with 22 percent of drivers 35 to 44.[13] Texting while driving received greater attention in the late 2000s, corresponding to a rise in the number of text messages being sent.[13] The 2008 Will Smith movie Seven Pounds deals with Smith's character committing suicide in order to donate his organs to help save the lives of seven people to make up for the seven people he killed in a car accident because he was receiving a text message while he was driving. Texting while driving attracted interest in the media after several highly publicized car crashes were caused by texting drivers, including a May 2009 incident involving a Boston trolley car driver who crashed while texting his girlfriend.[14] Texting was blamed in the 2008 Chatsworth train collision which killed 25 passengers. Investigations revealed that the engineer of that train had sent 45 text messages while operating. Despite these incidents, texting was still on the rise. A July 2010 Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll found 25% of New Jersey voters admitted to sending a text while driving, which was an increase from 15% in 2008. This increase could be attributed to drivers over the age of 30 sending text messages. More than 35% of New Jersey drivers aged 30 to 45 and 17% of drivers over 45 admitted to having sent a text message while driving in the last year, an increase of 5–10% from 2008.[15] Several studies have attempted to compare the dangers of texting while driving with driving under the influence. One such study was conducted by Car and Driver magazine in June 2009.[16] The study, carried out at the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport in Oscoda, Michigan, used two drivers in real cars and measured reaction times to the onset of light on the windshield. The study compared the reaction times and distances of the subjects while reading a text message, replying to the text message, and impaired. The study showed that at 35 mph, reading a text message decreased the reaction time the most, 0.12 and 0.87 seconds. Impaired driving at the same speed resulted in an increase of 0.01 and 0.07 seconds. In terms of stopping distances these times were estimated to mean:
Unimpaired: .54 seconds to brake
Legally drunk: add 4 feet
Reading e-mail: add 36 feet.
Sending a text: add 70 feet[17]
On Sept. 29, 2010, the insurance industry’s Highway Loss Data Institute released research purporting to show that texting-while-driving bans in four states failed to reduce crashes and may instead have contributed to an increase in road accidents. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the study "completely misleading".[18]
In March 2012 the UK's Institute of Advanced Motorists published a study which claimed that using smartphones for social networking while driving is more dangerous than drink-driving or being high on cannabis.[19]
[edit]Virginia Tech Transportation Institute Study
On July 27, 2009, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute released preliminary findings of their study of driver distraction in commercial vehicles. Several naturalistic driving studies, of long-haul trucks as well as lighter vehicles driving six million combined miles, used video cameras to observe the drivers and road. Researchers observed 4,452 "safety-critical" events, which includes crashes, near crashes, safety-critical events, and lane deviations.81% of the "safety-critical" events involved some type of driver distraction. Text messaging had the greatest relative risk, with drivers of heavy vehicles or trucks being more than 23 times more likely to experience a safety-critical event when texting. The study also found that drivers typically take their eyes off the forward roadway for an average of four out of six seconds when texting, and an average of 4.6 out of the six seconds surrounding safety-critical events. The study revealed that when traveling at 55 miles per hour (89 km/h), a driver texting for 6 seconds is looking at the phone for 4.6 seconds of that time and travels the distance of a football field without their eyes on the road. Some of VTTI's conclusions from this study included that "texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers", and that "all cell phone use should be banned for newly licensed teen drivers".