Stats are from first government study to ask about issue
By Mike Stobbe
Associated Press Friday June 8, 2012 6:55 AM
ATLANTA — Think your teen would never text while driving?
More than half of high-school seniors admitted in a government survey that they’ve done just that.
It’s the first time the question was asked in a teen poll on risky behavior, and the finding comes amid a renewed federal crackdown on distracted driving.
Texting and cell phone use behind the wheel is “a national epidemic,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday.
“We need to teach kids, who are the most vulnerable drivers, that texting and driving don’t mix,” LaHood said at a news conference to announce pilot projects in Delaware and California to discourage distracted driving.
In the survey, about 58 percent of high school seniors said they had texted or emailed while driving during the previous month. About 43 percent of high school juniors acknowledged that they had done the same thing.
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Vicki Rimasse, a New Jersey woman whose son caused a fender bender earlier this year after texting in traffic. She made him take a safe-driving class after the mishap.
“I felt like an idiot,” said Dylan Young, 18. The episode taught him “to be a lot more cautious,” although he conceded that he sometimes still texts behind the wheel.
The findings released yesterday are the first federal statistics on how common the dangerous habit is in teens. Distracted-driving deaths are most common in teens, blamed for about 16 percent of teen motor vehicle deaths.
Thirty-nine states, including Ohio, ban texting for all age groups, and an additional five states outlaw it for novice teen drivers. In the past two weeks, teens in Missouri and Massachusetts have been sentenced to jail — one for a year — for fatal accidents involving texting.
For the survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year questioned more than 15,000 public and private high-school students across the country.
The CDC survey didn’t ask whether the texting or emailing was done while the vehicle was moving or stopped. The survey is conducted every two years, but this was the first time it asked about texting while driving.
CDC officials said there was some good news in the survey:
• Fewer teens said they drove drunk (8 percent vs. double that in the 1990s) or rode with a driver who had been drinking (24 percent, down from 40 percent).
• Overall, teen deaths from motor-vehicle crashes are down 44 percent in the last decade. About 3,100 teens died from traffic crashes in 2009, according to the most-recent federal statistics.
For information on the LynxSafe Teen Driving Monitor, that disables texting and driving, along with web browsing, contact Development Manager Vincent Rush at Lynx Telematics in Cincinnati, Ohio at 513-965-6318 or 513-702-0495. Vincent Rush can also be reached by email at vrush@lynxtelematics.com or visit http://lynxtelematics.com for information on Lynx Telematics.
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