“It’s like you’re driving drunk!” is what I tell friends and relatives who talk
Photo courtesy of Stockvault
on their cell phones while driving. And if that sounds overly emphatic (it’s correct, by the way), that urgency is in roughly inverse proportion to what people tend to think about the dangers of this practice — i.e., that it’s no big deal.
It is a big deal, unfortunately, as numerous studies show. Among the latest is from Safe Kids USA, which looked at distracted drivers in school zones and came up with some disquieting results.
One would assume that if more and more people are driving while phoning or text messaging — and, by all estimates, they are — they’re not suddenly hanging up or signing off when they enter school zones.
It’s also not surprising that a recent Canadian study, cited in the report, found that more child-car collisions occur within 150 meters of schools than 300 or more meters away.
Just how many people are driving while distracted in school zones? Safe Kids wanted to find out, so it posted observers at 20 middle schools in 15 states. It found that 187 out of every 1,000 female drivers (and 154 out of every 1,000 male drivers) were distracted by at least one of the following: cell phones or electronics; eating, drinking, or smoking; reaching or looking behind; grooming; or reading.
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