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Mobile phones and driving safety


Mobile phone use while driving is common, but it is widely considered dangerous due to its potential for causing distracted driving and accidents. Due to the number of accidents that are related to cell phone use while driving, some jurisdictions have made the use of a cell phone while driving illegal. Many jurisdictions have enacted laws to ban handheld mobile phone use. Nevertheless, many jurisdictions allow use of a hands-free device, in which the driver talks using a microphone and a speakerphone. Driving while using a hands-free cellular device is not safer than using a hand held cell phone, as concluded by case-crossover studies, epidemiological, simulation, and meta-analysis. In some cases restrictions are directed only at minors, those who are newly qualified license holders (of any age), or to drivers in school zones. When mobile phones were first introduced, they were typically only able to make voice calls. In the 2000s, as cell phone technology developed, and smartphone usage increased, cell phones can also be used to read or type text messages, surf the Internet and view videos. Activities such as texting while driving can also increase the risk of an accident.

The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), the provincial automobile insurance association in Quebec, conducted a study on driving and cellphones in 2003. Questionnaires were sent to 175,000 drivers and analysis was done on the 36,078 who responded. The questionnaire asked about driving habits, risk exposure, collisions over the past 24 months, socio-demographic information, and cell phone use. Questionnaires were supported with data from cell phone companies and accident records held by police. The study found that the overall relative risk (RR) of having an accident for cell phone users when compared to non-cell phone users averaged 1.38 across all groups. When adjusted for distance driven per year and other crash risk exposures, RR was 1.11 for men and 1.21 for women. They also found that increased cell phone use correlated with an increase in RR. When the same data were reanalyzed using a Bayesian approach, the calculated RR of 0.78 for those making less than 1 call/day and 2.27 for those with more than 7 calls/day was similar to cohort analysis. When the data were reanalyzed using case-crossover analysis, RR was calculated at a much higher 5.13. The authors expressed concern that misclassification of phone calls due to reporting errors of the exact time of the collisions was a major source of bias with all case-crossover analysis of this issue.


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