A recent national study of children in car crashes reports that children who were driven by teenagers were three times as likely to have a serious injury as those who were driven by adults. The risk was highest for young teenaged passengers, those ages 13 to 15.
According to researchers from Partners for Child Passenger Safety - PCPS, a research partnership of
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and
State
Farm, teen drivers were more likely than adult drivers to be involved in more severe crashes and less likely to have child passengers under age 9 years properly restrained. The researchers propose modifying state licensing laws to provide education and requirements that promote safer driving by teenaged drivers.
The study, published in this month's issue of "Injury Prevention," looked at 19,111 children in 12,163 crashes reported to State Farm. Overall, teenagers drove four percent of these children in crashes. When a child was injured, however, teenagers were much more likely to be driving - 12 percent of the injured children had a teen driver. These children were not just their peers: 40 percent of teen-driven child passengers were younger than 13 suggesting that teens regularly drive younger children.
"The excess risk of injury to children in teen driver crashes can be primarily explained by the more severe crashes those teen drivers incurred," states Flaura Winston, MD, Ph.D., principal investigator for Partners for Child Passenger Safety and the scientific director of
TraumaLink, a pediatric injury research center at Children's Hospital. "The severity is likely a function of a teen driver's inexperienced driving or risk-taking behavior and immaturity."
Dr. Winston and her colleagues also noted higher likelihood of no restraint use and front row seating for child passengers who were driven by 15-to 17-year-old drivers. Children riding with these novice teen drivers were 3 times as likely to have no restraint at all as those with adult drivers. Also, children under age 13 years riding with novice teen drivers were more likely to sit in the front seat as compared to those with adult drivers.
"Parents need to understand the excess risk of allowing their teens to drive younger siblings," says Dr. Winston. "Parents should reinforce over and over the importance of safe driving habits among their teens to not only reduce their high crash rates but also to make sure that the teen driver and the passengers are appropriately restrained on every trip."
Enhanced public policy that includes child restraint and rear-seating requirements in state graduated driver's licensing GDL programs could provide teens with the necessary motivation to properly restrain all child passengers.
Nearly all states have some form of a GDL law in an attempt to address the persistent public health issue of teen driver crashes. Approximately 26 states have passenger restrictions during the intermediate licensing stage to prevent or limit the number of teenaged passengers -- a known risk factor for teen crashes. All current passenger restrictions exempt transporting family members.
"Busy parents have come to rely on their older children helping with shuttling siblings to various commitments," says Dr. Winston. Rather than restrict sibling passengers, Dr. Winston recommends GDL programs provide appropriate education and disincentives, such as postponement of full-driving privileges if all child passengers are not properly restrained.
Partners for Child Passenger Safety is a research collaboration between The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm. PCPS has created a database containing information on more than 300,000 crashes involving more than 453,000 children from birth through age 15 years. It is the largest source of data on children in motor vehicle crashes. PCPS is based at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and is funded by State Farm. Co-authors of the study with Dr. Winston are PCPS researchers Irene G. Chen, M.P.H.,
Dr.P.H.; Michael R. Elliot, Ph.D.; and Dennis R. Durbin, M.D., M.S.C.E.
Founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is ranked today as the best pediatric hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and Child magazines. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country, ranking second in National Institutes of Health funding. In addition, its unique family centered care and public service programs have brought the 430-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents from before birth through age 19. Children's Hospital operates the largest pediatric healthcare system in the U.S. with more than 40 locations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Teenage Cell Phone Users Drive Like The Elderly: Elderly Also Drive Worse When Chatting
If you have been stuck in traffic behind a motorist yakking on a cellular phone, a new
University of Utah study will sound familiar: When young motorists talk on cell phones, they drive like elderly people, moving and reacting more slowly and increasing their risk of accidents.
“If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone. It’s like instantly aging a large number of drivers,” says David
Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study.
Frank Drews, as assistant professor of psychology and study co-author, adds: “If you want to act old really fast, then talk on a cell phone while driving.”
The new study by Strayer and Drews was published in this winters issue of Human Factors, the quarterly journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
The study found that when 18-to 25-year-olds were placed in a driving simulator and talked on a cellular phone, they reacted to brake lights from a car in front of them as slowly as 65-to 74-year-olds who were not using a cell phone.
The elderly drivers, meanwhile, became even slower to react to brake lights when they spoke on a cell phone. But the good news for elderly drivers was that their driving skills did not become as bad as had been predicted by earlier research showing that older people performing multiple tasks suffer additional impairment due to aging.
The study found that drivers who talked on cell phones – regardless of whether they were young or old – were 18 percent slower in hitting their brakes than drivers who didn't use cell phones. The drivers chatting on cell phones also had a 12 percent greater following distance – an effort to compensate for paying less attention to road conditions – and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked.
In addition, “there was also a twofold increase in the number of [simulated] rear-end collisions when drivers were conversing on cell phones,” the study says.
Driving to Distraction: How the New Study was Performed
Strayer and his colleagues are widely known for their 2001 study showing that handsfree cell phones are just as distracting as handheld cell phones, and for a 2003 study showing that the reason is “inattention blindness,” in which motorists can look directly at road conditions but not really see them because they are distracted by a cell phone conversation. The research has called into question legislative efforts by various states to ban motorists from using handheld but not handsfree cell phones.
The same researchers also gained publicity for another study, which was presented at a scientific meeting in 2003, showing that motorists who talk on cell phones are more impaired than drunken drivers with blood alcohol levels exceeding 0.08.
The new study included 20 older adults -ages 65 to 74, with average age 70-and 20 younger adults -- ages 18 to 25, with average age 20. All of them had normal vision and a valid drivers license. Preliminary tests showed older people were slower to process information, as was expected.
Then the psychologists had the young and older study participants “drive” in a high-tech driving simulator. Participants in the simulator used dashboard instruments, steering wheel and brake and gas pedals from a Ford Crown Victoria sedan, surrounded by three screens showing freeway scenes and traffic, including a “pace car” that intermittently hit its brakes 32 times as it appeared to drive in front of study participants. If a participant failed to hit their own brakes, they eventually would rear-end the pace car.
Each participant drove four simulated 10-mile freeway trips lasting about 10 minutes each, talking on a cell phone with a research assistant during half the trips and driving without talking the other half. Only handsfree phones were used to eliminate any possible distraction from manipulating a handheld cell phone.
Thirty times each second, the simulator measured the participants’ driving speed, following distance and – if applicable – how long it took them to hit the brakes and how long it took them to regain speed. Those factors “have been shown to affect the likelihood and severity of rear-end collisions,” Strayer and Drews wrote.
The Findings: Age And Cell Phone Use Impair Drivers
The study found that:
- Compared with young drivers, older drivers were slower to hit the brakes when needed, tended to hit the brakes twice, took longer to regain speed and had a greater following distance. This was true when young and old participants drove with or without cell phones.
- Compared with drivers who did not talk on cell phones, those who used a cell phone while driving were slower to hit the brakes, had a longer following distance and took longer to regain speed. This was true of both young and old drivers. “Once drivers on cell phones hit the brakes, it takes them longer to get back into the normal flow of traffic,” Strayer says. “The net result is they are impeding the overall flow of traffic.”
- When young drivers used cell phones, the reaction time in hitting the brakes slowed to match that of elderly drivers who did not talk on cell phones, namely, an average of 912 milliseconds, or a bit more than nine-tenths of a second. When not talking on cell phones, young motorists hit the brakes within an average of 780 milliseconds, or almost eight-tenths of a second. The difference may seem small, but represents a 17 percent slower reaction time. Strayer says other studies have shown that much of a decrease in reaction time increases both the likelihood and severity of accidents.
- When elderly drivers used cell phones, their reaction times got worse, but not as bad as had been expected. Previous research “suggested older people should have been really messed up if you put them on a cell phone because, not only are they slower overall due to age, but there's a difficulty dividing attention that should make using a cell phone much more difficult for them than for young people,” Strayer said. Yet the study “suggests older adults do not suffer a significantly greater penalty for talking on a cell phone while driving than do their younger counterparts,” Strayer and Drews wrote.
That may be because older adults have more experience driving and take fewer risks, and those in the study may have been healthier than other seniors, Strayer says.
Crashing While Talking
Federal statistics show that the most accident-prone drivers are the young and old, with fatal accident rates high during teenage years, then declining until age 30 and staying relatively level until age 60, when accident rates climb again as age increases.
Six participants in the new study rear-ended the pace car while driving the simulator. Four accidents -one older adult and three younger adults- happened while the participants talked on cell phones. Two did not -- one older adult and one younger adult.
There were too few collisions for statistical analysis. But Strayer notes that twice as many accidents happened to motorists on cell phones compared with motorists who were not talking. And young drivers were in collisions twice as often as elderly drivers.
“Older drivers were slightly less likely to get into accidents than younger drivers,” Strayer says. “Why? They tend to have a greater following distance. Their reactions are impaired, but they are driving so cautiously they were less likely to smash into somebody,” although in real life, “older drivers are significantly more likely to be rear-ended” because of their slow speed.
When Strayer and Drews combined the new accident data with simulated driving accidents in their earlier studies, they counted 12 rear-end collisions among 121 study participants. Ten of the collisions happened when motorists were talking on cell phones.
That is statistically significant and provides “clear evidence that drivers using a cell phone were more likely to be involved in a collision than when these same drivers were not using a cell phone,” the psychologists wrote.
Latest Research Shows ALL Cell Phone Conversations Distracting; Officials Say Handheld Cell Phone Bans Send Dangerous Message
The Governors Highway Safety Association
-GHSA- yesterday cited new research from the University of Utah as further evidence that
both handsfree and handheld cell phone use are potentially dangerous behaviors while driving.
The study, conducted by Dr. David Strayer and Dr. Frank Drews, found that when 18-to 25-year-olds were placed in a driving simulator and talked on a cell phone, they reacted to brake lights from a car in front of them as slowly as 65-to 74-year olds who were not using a cell phone. The study also found that drivers who talked on cell phones were 18 percent slower in hitting their brakes than drivers who did not talk and drive. The drivers were distracted whether they were using a handheld phone or using the handsfree feature. Dr. Stayer was quoted in a press interview earlier this week stating, "Any activity requiring a driver to actively be part of a conversation likely will impair driving abilities."
GHSA Chair Colonel Jim Champagne praised the research as offering a further reminder that all cell phone conversations behind the wheel can distract the driver. GHSA has been concerned that the attention given to legislative bans on handheld use is sending the message that drivers are being safe as long as they are talking
handsfree. Champagne says, "GHSA's opposition to handheld cell phone bans is rooted in the fact that these limited bans urge drivers to continue an unsafe behavior behind the wheel. The best message to drivers is: Do not use your cell phone at all while driving." If you have read everything up to this point, what you were reading was a series of press releases I came across this week that are readily available on the Internet. For the latest information on cell phone laws throughout the
United States and
Puerto Rico including the Governors Highway Safety Association's position on this issue, a quick visit to these websites -highlighted above- will answer most, if not all of your questions. One important article to read,
"Brain Immaturity Could Explain Teen Crash Rate: Risky Behavior Diminishes At Age 25, NIH Study Finds," appeared in this past Tuesday's Washington Post and is very relevant to the current teen curfew debate
Life And Death Decisions Require As Little Distraction As Possible
Imagine receiving a phone call one day, informing you that your husband, dad, wife, mom, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister or anyone else died on the operating table while having open heart surgery -- because the heart surgeon was yelling at his wife on a cell phone over a $3,000 charge on their American Express card last month for purchasing clothing at Neiman Marcus.
Imagine receiving a phone call, informing you that a loved one was lost in a fire because a fire fighter's friend called them just to see what they were doing at that moment.
Driving a motor vehicle is a life and death proposition that requires a multitude of decisions to be made from the time the ignition key is turned on until the second it is turned off. No, you don't need to attend medical school for years to learn how to drive a motor vehicle like you would to become a heart surgeon or be able to lift and carry 150+ pounds while running up and down 25 flights of stairs like you would to become a firefighter -- but you do have to have as little distraction as possible when driving as those people who are saving lives.
Anyone can easily take someone's life -- but it takes A LOT of effort to save lives. Every time anyone in this world gets behind the wheel of a car or other motor vehicle they have the RESPONSIBILITY to save lives rather than take them.
Anyone in a position of power who sets the rules and guidelines for public safety who DOES NOT GET THIS -- should not be holding the position they have.
When I get in my car, I don't want ANYONE on the road distracted one iota. How about you?
As of right now, the only information on these subject available in Spanish are contained within the article
"El celular afecta a los choferes jóvenes," published this morning.
Luckily, people in the United States and Puerto Rico, who just happen to speak Spanish exclusively, are
never involved in car accidents. How fortunate!
Well, that's all folks! Until next Friday.
Keith
For motivational speeches, conferences, media requests and other things such as eating disorders, you'll have to contact someone else. My only qualifications
for writing a weekly column are based solely upon having a lot of free time, unlimited Internet access and very little else.
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