Jim Jennings from the Allstate Insurance Company says the number one cause of distracted-driving accidents is the mobile phone. He says talking on the phone or reaching for it is like drinking four beers and driving.
JIM JENNINGS: "If you're texting while driving, you are twenty-three times more likely to get into an accident than somebody who isn't. Reaching for a cell phone when it's going off, you're nine times more likely to get into an accident than normally driving."
At first, nineteen-year-old Kevin Schumann easily avoided large, inflatable dolls thrown in front of the car to represent children. He also avoided orange cones representing the edge of the road. Then, as part of the test, he started texting. He hit several cones and at least one doll.
Government and private groups are using public service announcements and events to bring more attention to the problem. For example, the insurance industry recently held a safety event near Washington for teen drivers.
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Debbie Pickford of Allstate Insurance says teens are especially at risk from distracted driving -- and not just because they lack experience on the roads.
Car crashes are the top killer of American teenagers. Most of the crashes result from distracted driving -- not paying attention to the road.
Ryan Didone was a fifteen-year-old passenger in a car that hit a tree. He was one of the nation's more than thirty thousand victims of traffic crashes in two thousand eight. Nearly four thousand deaths, about twelve percent, involved drivers age fifteen to twenty.
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