RSS Feed
April 29th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda SUNDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) — A pair of new studies offers
insight into young people who use cellphones while driving: One finds that
there’s no safe position for texting at the wheel, while the other
suggests that the most compulsive cellphone users have had more car
accidents.
The latter study “points to a link” between driving mishaps and young
people who show symptoms similar to those of addiction when it comes to
cellphone use, said lead author Jennifer Whitehill, a postdoctoral
researcher at the University of Washington‘s Harborview Injury Prevention
and Research Center.
“We need to know if compulsive use of cellphones is predictive of the
future” when it comes to accidents, Whitehill said. “If so, we may be able
to identify these people and possibly counsel them.” The studies are
slated for presentation Sunday at the annual meeting of the Pediatric
Academic Societies, in Boston.
One study was conducted by Oklahoma high school students who are taking
part in a community effort to stop teen drivers and families from texting
on their cellphones while driving. The study sought to answer this
question: Is there a safer way to position a cellphone in order to text
while driving?
Thirty participants aged 15 to 19 used driving simulators in one of
three ways: without a cellphone; while texting with the phone in a
position that forced them to look downward to see messages; and while
texting with the phone in a position of their choice.
The teen drivers were about four to six times more likely to drift out
of their lanes in the simulation if they were texting, no matter where
they put the phone. They were also twice as likely to have near misses
with cars and pedestrians if they were texting, regardless of where the
phone was.
In the other study, Whitehill and colleagues gave surveys to 384
undergraduate students that were designed to detect whether they were
compulsive users of cellphones. Among other things, the questions asked
whether they are emotionally attached to their cellphones, often
anticipate calls or messages, and can’t function normally due to cellphone
use.
The idea was to get at whether “you are thinking about your phone even
when you’re not using, when it’s off,” she said.
The survey also asked about whether the participants had been in car
accidents previously.
“The folks who scored higher on compulsive cellphone use had more prior
crashes,” Whitehill said.
The study estimates that “if we had a group of 100 students with the
lowest scores on the (compulsive scale), we would expect that 25 had a
crash in the last year,” she said. “Among 100 students with the highest
scores, we would see 38 crashes. That’s an extra 13 crashes per 100
students within the high-risk group.”
However, Whitehill said, the study doesn’t prove that compulsive
cellphone use directly led to more accidents. It’s possible that another
factor — such as being easily distracted — might account for both. “We
didn’t ask about other types of anxious behaviors or general difficulties
with being easily distracted,” she said.
Paul Atchley, an associate professor of psychology at the University of
Kansas who studies driving and is familiar with Whitelaw’s findings, said:
“Studies like this are critical for traffic safety professionals trying to
change this dangerous behavior. We need to understand the mind of our
drivers to know how to help them change these dangerous behaviors.”
When it comes to preventing cellphone use while driving, adults should
emphasize “the positive effects of staying off the phone while driving as
opposed to the negative effects of being on it,” said Jessica Mirman, a
behavioral researcher at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Because the studies were presented at a medical meeting, the data and
conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a
peer-reviewed journal.
More information
To learn more about safe driving for teens, visit the U.S. National Library
of Medicine.
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
