A new study has found that the death toll from crashes caused by drivers talking on cell phones appears to have risen markedly in recent years, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.
The study to be released on Monday by Harvard University’s Centre for Risk Analysis estimates a rate of 2 600 cellphone-related road deaths per year, compared to around 1 000 such fatalities just two years ago.
”The amount of time people spend using their cellphones while driving has increased, probably reflecting the fact that it is becoming cheaper to use the devices,” the study’s author, Joshua Cohen, told the newspaper.
The Harvard study also estimated that 570 000 injuries each year and 1,5-million incidents of property damage can be blamed on cellphone use dy drivers.
The US National Transportation Safety Board is investigating cellphones as a potential contributing factor in several recent serious crashes in various localities across the United States, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is
launching a study of how cellphone use affects individual drivers, the Times reported.
The Harvard study concluded that the escalating costs of cellphone-related accidents are erasing the economic benefits of unrestricted use of the devices by drivers.
”The risk is growing, but the benefits are not keeping up,” Cohen said.
Across the United States, at least 22 states are considering legislation to restrict cellphone use while driving, the newspaper reported, citing the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
At present just one state, New York, has enacted a partial prohibition, one which restricts drivers from using hand-held phones, but which allows them to use devices such as earpieces, headsets or microphones which allow for hands-free phone use. – Sapa-AFP