Cell Phones are Top Safety Danger for Motorists, Survey Says February 14, 2012

Driving while talking on a cell phone has become the No. 1 safety problem on roads and highways, a new survey shows.

Not far behind was texting while driving. Together, text messaging and cell phoning drew almost 40 percent of the responses.

Separately, both problems outweighed last year’s main concern, which was speeding and aggressive driving, according to the second-annual survey by the California Office of Traffic Safety. And texting soared upward as the biggest danger, going from last year’s 2 percent to 18 percent.

When asked to name the most serious distraction for drivers, 56 percent of respondents said cell phone use and 27 percent said texting while driving. No other distracted activity, such as grooming, eating, etc., was cited in more than 2 percent of the responses.

Texting gained ground as a concern, going from about 13 percent  in 2010 to 27 percent this year. Cell phone use – both handheld or hands-free – actually dropped 6 percent, presumably  with many of those mentions rerouted to texting.

The current survey questioned 1,801 drivers, over age 18, at gas stations all over California.

The survey shows drivers are getting the message about distracted driving: When they were asked how often they had talked on a handheld cell phone in the past 30 days, more than 10 percent said “regularly” — a drop from 14 percent in 2010. A majority of the drivers said they “never” did it.

When asked the same question about text messaging while driving, 6 percent said they did it regularly, down from 9 percent in 2010, and 72 percent said never. More drivers in the 18-24 age group cited texting as the most dangerous, yet they were more likely to text message while behind the wheel.

Other responses from the traffic safety survey:

• Forty percent of drivers said they used cell phone less because of California’s handheld law.
• Seventy percent said hands-free cell phone use was more safe than handheld use.
• Sixty percent said they had been hit or almost hit by a driver talking on a cell phone, up slightly from 2010.

For more on traffic safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach car accident attorney.