Recently, two professors at Pennsylvania’s Kings College conducted a study on the driving and texting habits of college students. One of the main findings shouldn’t be much of a surprise: most of the students were guilty of texting while driving — in fact, about 80 percent of them were.
What was a surprise to the researchers was drivers’ attitude toward texting and driving. While men and women seemed to do it in equal rates, male drivers were more likely to think of themselves as skilled drivers, meaning they didn’t view their own behavior as dangerous.
One of the reasons behind these studies is to figure out how to discourage people from texting and driving in an effort to decrease motor vehicle accidents. The fact that young male drivers don’t see their own behavior as dangerous could make a simple ban on texting while driving ineffective for that segment. Perhaps a greater campaign of educating drivers of the dangers of distracted driving might be more fruitful in the long run.
Source: Los Angeles Times, “Males downplay risk of texting and driving, study says,” Monte Morin, Oct, 11, 2013