Harmless or Dangerous?

In an article by  Michael Austin in a Car and Driver magazine, they tested the reaction rate of two men who were texting while driving.  The two men were tested on their reaction times for driving while reading and writing and text, and driving while intoxicated past the legal limit.


The first tested was a intern named Jordan Brown, 22.  These are his reaction rates:

Intern Brown’s baseline reaction time at 35 mph of 0.45 second worsened to 0.57 while reading a text, improved to 0.52 while writing a text, and returned almost to the baseline while impaired by alcohol, at 0.46. At 70 mph, his baseline reaction was 0.39 second, while the reading (0.50), texting (0.48), and drinking (0.50) numbers were similar. 

The second tested was a 37 year-old man named Eddie Alterman. These are his rates:

While reading a text and driving at 35 mph, his average baseline reaction time of 0.57 second nearly tripled, to 1.44 seconds. While texting, his response time was 1.36 seconds. His reaction time after drinking averaged 0.64 seconds. The results at 70 mph were similar: Alterman’s response time while reading a text was 0.35 second longer than his base performance of 0.56 second, and writing a text added 0.68 second to his reaction time. But his intoxicated number increased only 0.04 second over the base score, to a total of 0.60 second.

Also, the Edgar Snyder & Associates website contains statistics that support the statement that texting while driving is more dangerous than drinking and driving:

•4 out of every 5 accidents (80%) are attributed to distracted drivers. In contrast, drunk drivers account for roughly 1 out of 3 (33%) of all accidents nationally
•Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated.

In conclusion, driving while texting (reading or writing) can cause significantly slower reactions rates that driving while intoxicated.


I agree with the conclusion made from this expirement because I found 2 additional sources that say the same thing.
On ABC news, Oprah Winfrey says:

Texting behind the wheel is the equivalent of having four drinks and driving.

Also the website, Alcohol: Problems and Solutions talks about an expirement in Great Britain, coming up with the same conclusion as Car and Driver magazine.

Research in Great Britain has found that texting behind the wheel is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated.

Therefore, using these 4 different sources, one can trust that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving under the influence. However, I do NOT encourage you to drink and drive because there are still fatal consequences.