JEDDAH, 2 July 2006 — Drivers who use cell phones while speeding down the Kingdom’s highways may seem like they’re drunk. Even if they aren’t intoxicated while driving, they’re just as dangerous. They drift aimlessly in their vehicles while chatting, seemingly oblivious to cars occupying the nearby lanes of traffic.
Recently, this comparison between drunk drivers and chattering drivers was made official. Psychologists at the University of Utah this week published a study showing that motorists who talk on handheld or hands-free cellular phones were as impaired in their driving as drunks.
“Just as you put yourself and other people at risk when you drive drunk, you put yourself and others at risk when you use a cell phone and drive. The level of impairment is very similar,” said David Strayer, a psychology professor and the study’s lead author.
One statistical analysis of the research showed cell phone users were 5.36 times more likely to get in an accident than undistracted drivers.
Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology and co-author of the recent report pointed out that driving while talking on a cell phone can impair your driving as much as a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent, the threshold of drunk driving in most US states.
“If legislators really want to address driver distraction, then they should consider outlawing cell phone use while driving,” said Drews.
The preliminary results of the three-year-study were published in July 2003 but have since undergone peer review by other researchers before final publication.
In the study, volunteers used a driving simulator under four different environments: while undistracted, while using a handheld mobile, while using a hands-free mobile and with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level.
Participants followed a simulated pace car that braked intermittently. Three of the cell-phone talkers plowed into the rear of the pace car. While none of the study’s intoxicated drivers crashed, their tendency to brake late is “predictive of increased accident rates over the long run,” the researchers wrote.
Both handheld and hands-free cell phones impaired driving, with no significant difference in the degree of impairment. That finding “calls into question driving regulations that prohibited handheld cell phones and permit hands-free cell phones,” the researchers wrote.
The study found that motorists who talked on either handheld or hands-free cell phones drove slightly slower; were 9 percent slower to apply the brakes; displayed 24 percent more variation in following distance as their attention switched between driving and conversing; and were 19 percent slower to resume normal speed after braking. To sum it up: They were more likely to crash.
“Impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving could be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk,” the researchers concluded.
The problem of driving while intoxicated in Saudi Arabia may not be common, but it is common to see people use cell phones — or worse, send text messages — while driving.
