 |
| Credit: Brad Greenlee on Flickr |
Texting while driving poses a potentially deadly risk for teens with ADHD, according to a recent study. When texting while driving, teens with ADHD had “more variability in speed and lane position than control subjects,” reports Megan Narad of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and her colleagues. Commentators from the University of Pennsylvania refer to the study results as "the perfect storm," a serious crash risk.
The researchers put 61 teens between the ages of 16 and 17 in a driving simulator. Twenty eight of the participants had ADHD, but had not taken any medication. The teenagers were in the simulator under three sets of circumstances, texting while driving, talking on a cell phone while driving and driving with no distraction introduced. Additionally, the teens faced one unexpected event, such as a car swerving into their lane, during each 10-minute simulation.
The results, published online in JAMA Pediatrics, show that teens with ADHD
drove outside their lane 1.76 percent of the time. When texting, the amount of time spent outside their lane nearly doubled to 3.3 percent of the time. "That's just a heck of a lot of time for a kid or any driver to be out of their lane when they're driving," said study author Jeffery Epstein to WebMD.
 |
| Credit: Andrew Steinmetz on Flickr |
Several recommendations to reduce texting while driving are:
- Having teens sign an online pledge available from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
- Installing apps on phones that turn the phone off if driving is detected.
- Using eye tracking systems that alert a driver if they turn their eyes away from traffic.
For information on apps and eye tracking systems see:
Sources:
This article was first published by me on Examiner.com.
©Mary M Conneely T/A Advocacy in Action
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments and questions are welcome!