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Ford Finds Teens More at Risk for Distracted Driving
Oct 06 2009 by Sherrice Gilsbach
Have you ever texted while driving? Has your teen driver? When driving, cell phones and texting make it easy to put safety on the back burner. Ford has been conducting tests on distracted driving and invited automotive journalists to view their testing facilities last week and the results are eye-opening.
Auto accidents are the No. 1 killer of teens. As you may have guessed, teens are much more susceptible to distracted driving than adult drivers — more so than moms with infants and toddlers (this is debatable, I know). A Ford study pitted adults against younger drivers in a driving simulator, and the results were surprising.
The drivers were given tasks to complete while in the simulator and their response times were monitored, said Louis Tijerina, a senior technology specialist for Ford. The drivers were instructed to push a turn-signal indicator when a car ahead of them swerved. They also were asked to dial a phone number on a cell phone while in the simulator. The study found adults would key a few numbers into the phone and look up, but teens never looked up while dialing the number and driving.
It’s frightening isn’t it? Ford’s test data showed that while dialing a 10-digit phone number, adults didn’t see the swerving car ahead of them 13 percent of the time as opposed to 3 percent of the time when they weren’t distracted. Teens missed the swerving vehicle nearly 54 percent of the time while trying to dial a phone number. We have got to get these kids — and adults, too — to keep their eyes on the road.
Ford isn’t the only one paying attention to distracted driving. The Obama administration is so concerned by this growing “epidemic” that last week it banned federal employees from texting while driving in government cars.
eh…Does it really take a rocket scientist to know this?
Teens are inexperienced, and distracted drivers are prone to accidents. Adding the 2 together will definitely be as simple as 1+1 and not (-1)+(-1)