LONGWOOD, Fla. — Half of U.S. teens with cell phones admit
talking on them while driving, and a third say they’ve written text messages
while they were at the wheel, according to a report released Monday.
According to the study by the Pew Research Center in Washington,
D.C, which surveyed 800 teens up to age 17:
—75 percent of teens have a cell phone, and more than half
of them say they have talked on their cell phone while driving.
—40 percent say they have been in a car when the driver used
a cell phone “in a way that put themselves or others in danger.”
—48 percent of teens say they have been in a car when the
driver was texting.
—More than one-third of teens ages 16 or 17 who text say
that have texted while driving.
Peter Andros, 16, of Maitland, Fla., said he’s aware that
some friends have had close calls while driving and texting. “It’s a
problem, no question,” he said.
Peter was in Longwood, Fla., on Saturday taking a driving
lesson with Florida Safety Council instructor Victoria Mooney, who’s also a Seminole
County deputy sheriff and a school resource officer.
“It’s frightening,” Mooney said. “There are
so many other distractions on the road anyway.”
Not long ago, she watched a motorist drive up on a curb
while texting.
“The focus needs to be on the road,” she said.
“Just using a cell phone is bad enough, and now texting — it just has no
place while you’re driving.”
With teens, distracted driving holds a particular threat,
she said. “Young drivers don’t have enough experience to know better. So
many of them have to learn the hard way.”
The study contained some troubling comments from the
teenagers surveyed. One high-schooler said he thinks texting while driving is
“fine,” adding “I wear sunglasses so the cops don’t see (his
eyes looking down.)”
A girl said that her “sister does it, despite my
mother’s warnings. So does my brother and my friends despite my warnings.”
Others made distinctions between reading texts while
driving, and actually typing out the answers. “And if I do text while I’m
driving,” said one teen, “I usually try to keep the phone up near the
windshield, so if someone is braking in front of me or stops short, I’m not
going to be looking down and hit them.”
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The Pew study was released in advance of a workshop on
distracted driving that the Federal Communications Commission plans to hold on
Friday in Washington. Industry experts, members of government and the public
will participate.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has already gone on record
with his concerns. “Distracted driving endangers life and property and the
current levels of injury and loss are unacceptable,” he sold a U.S. Senate
committee last month.
He cited a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
report in 2008 that said driver distraction is the cause of 16 percent of all
fatal crashes, which translates to 5,800 people killed, and 21 percent of
crashes that result in an injury, which is 515,000 people.
The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would provide
federal funding to states that pass laws against distracted driving.
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted
bans on texting while driving.
It is not illegal in Florida, but there are several
proposals working their way through the state Legislature that would ban
texting while driving. Research by AAA in California shows that in-vehicle text
messaging declined by 70 percent since California’s law went into effect in
January.
Glenn Victor, director of marketing for the Florida Safety
Council and one of the instructors, said for teens, many of whom have grown up
with a keyboard at the fingertips, “it seems natural to them. They don’t
realize the danger, often until it’s too late.”
Heather Prince of Orlando, who just turned 19, said a close
friend ran into the back of another car recently, and while “she insists
she wasn’t texting, I know she was. She doesn’t anymore. No one was hurt, but
it taught her a lesson the hard way.”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
