Distracted driving prevention requires more than just legislation: Preliminary results of a cross-sectional survey

Annual Congress and Medicare Expo on Trauma & Critical Care

March 07-09, 2016 Madrid, Spain

Ruby Skinner

Kern Medical Centre, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Trauma Treat

Abstract :

Distracted driving is a worldwide epidemic. In the U.S. despite numerous prevention campaigns, there are high rates of fatal distraction-related accidents reported at 3,328 in 2012 according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. Hand held cell phone use including texting has been the primary targets of prevention. Studies have shown that cell phone use within 10 minutes of a collision led to a fourfold increase in the likelihood of a crash and this likelihood of collision does not differ between hand-held cell phone uses or with the use of blue-tooth technology. In 2013, our research group reported that 45% of the drivers in Kern County California who died in pre-hospital crashes had texted within five minutes of the collision. At the time of the data collection, California had laws prohibiting texting while driving and handheld mobile phone use while driving. Those daunting statistics led our team to explore the behavioral and psychological characteristics of drivers in our region including predisposing factors for driving with distractions such as texting or mobile phone use. Our preliminary cross� sectional survey results have confirmed that 40% of adult drivers report texting and driving, despite knowledge of existing laws banning the activity. The data also establishes a high incidence of impulsive behavioral characteristics in the study cohort. These data are compelling and suggest that distracted driving prevention efforts will require a multidisciplinary approach including research focused on the behavioral characteristics of drivers and the impact of mobile phone technology on such high-risk driving behaviors.