Does banning hand-held cell phone use while driving reduce collisions?

2011

If you do not pay attention to the road while driving, you are more likely to crash ? simple enough. Crashing into the rear of the car in front of you is avoidable in most situations by simply paying attention to the road. About half of multi-vehicle crashes occur from the front end of one car running into the rear of another car. What causes drivers to not pay attention? And what are states doing to prevent these crashes? Driver distraction accounts for a significant number of crashes each year. Recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that 22 percent of injury crashes and 16 percent offatal crashes involve driver distraction. These estimates likely underestimate the size of the problem! since only reported cases of distraction were counted. A NHTSA study from the 1970s concluded that driver error accounted for more than 90 percent of crashes.