Cellular Phone Use While Driving at Night

Abstract

Objective. Use of a cellular phone has been shown to negatively affect one's attention to the driving task, leading to an increase in crash risk. At any given daylight hour, about 6% of US drivers are actively talking on a hand-held cell phone. However, previous surveys have focused only on cell phone use during the day. Driving at night has been shown to be a riskier activity than driving during the day. The purpose of the current study was to assess the rate of hand-held cellular phone use while driving at night, using specialized night vision equipment.

Methods. In 2006, two statewide direct observation survey waves of nighttime cellular phone use were conducted in Indiana utilizing specialized night vision equipment. Combined results of driver hand-held cellular phone use from both waves are presented in this manuscript.

Results. The rates of nighttime cell phone use were similar to results found in previous daytime studies. The overall rate of nighttime hand-held cellular phone use was 5.8 ± 0.6%. Cellular phone use was highest for females and for younger drivers. In fact, the highest rate observed during the study (of 11.9%) was for 16-to 29-year-old females.

Conclusions. The high level of cellular phone use found within the young age group, coupled with the increased crash risk associated with cellular phone use, nighttime driving, and for young drivers in general, suggests that this issue may become an important transportation-related concern.

Keywords:

• Cellular Phone
• Cell Phone
• Mobile Phone
• Nighttime
• Driving
• Direct Observation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We express our thanks to several individuals who were essential to the completion of this project. Robert Brown, Ron Fisher, and Robert McMurray conducted field observations. Judy Settles and Mary Chico coordinated administrative procedures for the field observers. Amy Neumeyer provided valuable comments on a previous version of this manuscript. The Center for the Advancement of Transportation Safety (CATS) at Purdue University provided essential information for survey design matching. Special thanks to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, Indiana State Police, Indiana Sheriff's Association, and Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police for their support.

Notes

∗Only one driver over age 59 and one large van driver were observed using a cellular phone so these groups were excluded from the analyses.