Washington, May 21: Texting and talking on cell phones behind the wheel kills more than 5,000 people every year on US highways . Teen drivers seem to be especially susceptible to distraction , a study says.
A 2009 study focusing on drivers of larger vehicles and trucks has concluded that texting raised the risk of a crash by 23 times compared with non-distracted driving, an environmental report says.
Environmental researcher Uvid Hosansky, who authored the report on texting while driving for the journal CQ Researcher, wrote, "Texting drivers took their eyes off the road for each text an average of 4.6 seconds, which at 55 mph means they were driving the length of a football field without looking."
