Driving and Phones: Not So Risky?

Eating, drinking and adjusting the radio remain top in-car distractions.

By PT Staff, published on July 01, 2003 - last reviewed on July 17, 2008

Distracted drivers are a danger—but this time, gabbing motorists don't get all the blame. The cell phone, one technological distraction, stirs up fears that more and more people are paying less and less attention as they drive. But while it's true that more than one out of four accidents happen because a driver simply wasn't paying attention, it turns out that cell phones should be the least of our worries.

Traditional distractions such as eating, drinking and fiddling with the radio remain the main reasons we take our eyes off the road, according to a study sponsored by AAA Foundation of Traffic Safety. Drivers spend more time grooming themselves than talking on the phone. "Love them or hate them, cell phones were not nearly on top of the culprit list," says coauthor Donald Reinfurt from the University of North Carolina Safety Research Center.

For the study, researchers rigged the cars of 70 participants with hidden cameras that monitored driver eye movement and surrounding traffic conditions. Half the drivers were from Philadelphia and half were from the Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. Each participant was observed for three hours.

More than 90 percent of the subjects were distracted as they reached for something, such as adjusting the stereo. Some 75 percent of the drivers took their eyes off the road as they ate or drank. Only 30 percent of the drivers used cell phones, and on average their conversations lasted only a minute and a half.

"I think at the outset everyone thought that cell phones would stand out like a sore thumb, but they don't," says Reinfurt. "It may not make sense at the moment to outlaw cell phone use." He cautions that people may become more distracted as other devices, such as GPS systems, become more commonplace.

The researchers note that their study only measured eye movement, and did not directly gauge a driver's concentration or attention. While drivers may spend more time eating than talking, a phone call may demand more mental reserves—and bring a greater risk.