EVERY DRIVER IS DISTRACTED SOME OF THE TIME, STUDY SHOWS By Automobile Association of America

All drivers -- yes, every one of them -- engage in some kind of distracting activity while they are driving, according to research funded by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and performed by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. And while cell phones are the distraction people love to hate, other distractions were far more prevalent and could be more hazardous.

In the first such study of its kind, researchers used in-car video cameras to see how drivers behaved when they were behind the wheel of their own cars. The tapes showed that distraction is an everyday occurrence: Over three hours of driving, all of the drivers were distracted at some point, 90% by something outside the car and 100% by something inside the vehicle.

The following chart shows the percentage of drivers who engaged in the most common distracting activities while driving:

"We found that people do adjust their behavior to a certain extent," says Peter Kissinger, President of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "They have a tendency to do potentially distracting things while their car is stopped". Overall, vehicles were stopped an average of 15.3% of the time they were in use, yet 70% of reading and writing, 34% of grooming, and 25% of cell phone use occurred while the vehicle was not moving.

"Around a quarter of all traffic crashes are caused by distractions, which annually account for 1.2 million incidents," Kissinger says. "People often underestimate the seriousness of distractions because not every distraction leads to a crash. But if you are distracted just when someone pulls out in front of you, your lack of attention can be catastrophic."

Research performed by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

©2007 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety