Here’s frightening news: Despite celebrities like Oprah Winfrey warning people that vehicles are a “No Phone Zone,” last year New Jersey drivers did more texting while behind the wheel than ever.
Some 25 percent of Jersey drivers said they have texted while driving in the past few years, a 25 percent increase from last year, when only 21 percent said they had done so, according to a study conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll. The study, which was released last week, was co-sponsored by the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety.
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/texting/
And ironically, even though Garden State drivers are acting foolishly by doing more texting, they still believe that New York drivers are worse than them.
According to the study, in prior years the increases in texting in New Jersey could be attributed to drivers under 30, but this isn’t the case anymore. Although the youngest drivers are more likely to text than any other age group, the increase in texting in this year’s survey was attributed to drivers 30 to 60.
This year 37 percent of drivers 30 to 44 years said they they’ve sent a text while driving, up nine points from last year. And 17 percent of drivers 45 to 60 said they had texted while driving, an increase of 12 percent in 2009.
And for drivers 30 to 60, those who admit to texting while driving has increased dramatically since 2008.
“These figures reflect how much texting has become part of our lives, so much so that we’re even doing it in the driver’s seat,” Dan Cassino, director of experimental research for the PublicMind poll and a Fairleigh Dickinson political science professor, said in a press release. “As more people get used to texting, more are going to do it while driving, so these numbers are probably going to keep going up for some time.”
While texting behind the wheel is on the rise, the use of hand-held phones while driving in the Garden State is on the decline. This year only 12 percent of New Jersey drivers say that they “very often” or “sometimes” talk on a hand-held cell while behind the wheel, down from 18% in 2009, and half of the 26% who admitted to doing so in 2007.
The biggest contributor to this drop was a substantial decline in the use of hand-held phones by young drivers. This year, only 13 percent of drivers under age 30 said that they regularly talked on a hand-held phone while driving, compared to 33 percent last year.
Some of this decline can be attributed to the belief that hands-free devices are safer: 79 percent of New Jersey drivers say that hand-held phones are more dangerous than hands-free devices, up from 67 percent in 2008.
“Most drivers don’t seem to understand that it isn’t holding the phone that’s the problem, but the mental and visual distraction caused by the conversation,” Pam Fischer, director of New Jersey’s highway traffic safety unit, said in a press release. “If we’re replacing hand-held cell phone use with texting, which is more dangerous than driving drunk, we’re certainly not moving in the right direction.”