Newscast: Texting + trucks + driving = accidents

According to a recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, a certain demographic of drivers are 23 times more likely to get in an accident while texting. This far outweighs the risks of talking on your cell phone and even rivals the risks of driving while drunk.

Who are these precarious tech savvy people? According to the study, they are commercial truck drivers.

The findings also showed that both truck drivers and automobile drivers increase their risk of an accident by dialing, talking on the phone and even by simply reaching for an electronic device, be it a cell phone, iPod or any one of the countless items we tend to keep close to us. For each of the situations, risks increased by about 6 times for all drivers.

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute monitored truck drivers for over 6 million miles and were able to determine that texting can be far more dangerous than simply talking and listening due to the visual distraction from the road that such devices cause. On average, drivers looked away for 5 seconds. Within this period of time, drivers are unaware of their surroundings, changes in traffic and their reaction time is drastically affected.

“Talking/listening to a cell phone allowed drivers to maintain eyes on the road and were not associated with an increased safety risk to nearly the same degree,” the institute said. “These results show conclusively that a real key to significantly improving safety is keeping your eyes on the road.”

As a result of their findings, the institute is recommending that texting be banned. Currently, text messaging while driving is banned in 14 states but Congress has made a move to make it illegal to do so in all states.

In a somewhat related side note, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute has yet to determine the dangers of eating, combing your hair, doing your makeup and changing your pants while driving. Perhaps such findings will be released after the next study.