Children More Distracting in Cars than Cellphones
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Goodshoot/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — A driver is 12 times more distracted with youngsters in the car than if caught talking on their cellphone, according to Australia’s Monash University.
Professor Judith Charlton and Dr. Sjaan Koppel analyzed 12 families taking 92 trips over a three-week period with an average of two children ages 1 to 8 in the backseat.
The results were that parents took their eyes off the road a whopping three minutes and 22 seconds per each 16-minute trip. In contrast, it’s believed that talking or listening on a cellphone only increases a crash risk by 1.3 times.
By and large, the most frequent type of distraction with kids in the car is either turning around to look at them or watching children in the rearview mirror. That was followed by talking to youngsters, assisting them in some fashion or even playing with them.
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