By Stevie Smith Aug 8, 2007, 16:51 GMT
While common sense is something everyone would claim to have a firm grip on in life, it seems to disappear into thin air whenever getting behind the wheel of a car is introduced into everyday existence. More pointedly, a recent Harris Interactive poll has revealed that almost nine out of ten US residents admit to driving while texting, even though they also recognise that it’s as dangerous as drinking and driving.
The survey, which was conducted across 2,049 American adults and published on Tuesday, revealed that respondents thought that typing text messages while driving should be made illegal. Moreover, 92 percent of those polled thought texting behind the wheel was just as bad as consuming alcohol prior to driving, while 66 percent admitted their guilt regarding reading text messages when they should be concentrating on the road.
In terms of age groupings, the Harris poll returned that those respondents aged between 18 and 34 were most likely to type, send, and/or read texts while driving. Those over the age of 55 ranked as the least likely.
72 percent revealed they had sent texts during a car journey, and 79 percent admitted to reading them. 57 percent of those polled said they both wrote and sent text messages rather than centring their attention on not crashing their vehicles.
A recent Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and US National Highway Safety Administration study has revealed that driver distraction accounted for around 80 percent of car-based road accidents and 65 percent of near misses in 2006. And these figures follow on from the recent June deaths of five teenage girls who were killed in New York while the girl driving was sending texts.
A related article published by InformationWeek reveals that legislation has already been put into motion in New Jersey and Washington, where those found to be texting from behind the wheel will be hit with slap-on-the-wrist dollar fines.
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