The dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone or texting have been well established and 39 states have instituted a ban on texting and driving. Ten other states also have complete bans on any drivers using cell phones unless a hands-free device is used. South Carolina, unfortunately, is not one of those states and has no bans or prohibitions in place.

Our Columbia accident attorneys know that drivers are at risk of distracted driving accidents because there are no statewide bans on the use of cell phones behind the wheel. Unfortunately, a new study shows that cell phones may be causing even more crashes than anyone realized.

The Dangers of Cell Phone Use

Recently, the National Safety Council expressed concern that the number of crashes related to cell phone use is greater than is currently being reported. As the Washington Post indicated, many accident reports are leaving out information about drivers using cell phones at the time of the collision.

After a collision, accident reports are generally written by law enforcement professionals who respond to the scene of the crash. Responders may not include cell phone use in their reports for many different reasons including drivers not admitting to using their cell phones and a lack of consistency in crash reporting forms.

To get more specific information on how many crashes might be underreported, researchers reviewed a total of 180 fatal accidents that had occurred over a three-year period. Each of these crashes was chosen for review because there was evidence that a driver was using a cell phone at the time of the accident.

Researchers found that in 2011, only 52 percent of these accidents indicated that cell phones were a factor. This means that almost half of the accidents that likely involved cell phone use made no mention of the fact that a driver may have been on the phone at the time of the collision.

The researchers also indicated that the data on cell phone accidents may be skewed because of wide variations among states as to whether cell phones were listed in accident reports. Tennessee, for example, reported 93 fatalities related to cell phone use while New York reported only one and Nevada reported none.

How Big is the Cell Phone Problem?

Based on its research and projections of how prevalent underreporting is, the National Safety Council indicated that as many as one-quarter of all car accidents involve cell phone use. This evidence contradicts existing data, including information provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

NHTSA has far lower numbers for cell-phone related accidents than the NSC is suggesting. The NHTSA data, for example, indicates that only around 10 percent of all accidents are attributed to any kind of distracted driving and that only 1.2 percent of the distracted driving crashes are related to cell phones.

The Governors Highway Safety Association has taken the position that the NHTSA data is more likely accurate and that there is no solid evidence to back up the NSC’s new conclusion that 25 percent of crashes are tied to phone use.

Despite this disagreement, however, it is likely that at least some cell-phone related crashes are not reported as such. Thus, while we may not know exactly how big the problem is, it is probably a bigger issue than has thus far been realized.

If you are hurt in a car accident, contact the Columbia, South Carolina attorneys at Matthews & Megna today at 877-253-7705.