So many accidents occur now a day due to distracted driving, and part of the reason is because there are so many things to take our eyes off the road. There are text messages to tempt us, email to enchant us, and cellphone rings can seduce us like a siren’s call.
But which distraction is the riskiest? That’s what researchers from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute set out to answer in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
By analyzing millions of miles of driving data collected over three years, the team found that dialing a phone was the most dangerous distraction, increasing a drivers’ chance of crashing by 12 times.
This was followed by reading or writing, which increased the risk by 10 times. Reaching for an item other than a cellphone came next, increasing the risk by nine times. Texting increased the risk by six times, reaching for a phone increased it by nearly five times, and browsing a phone or reading email nearly tripled a person’s chances of getting into an accident.