If this data is not enough to impress people with the dangers of talking or texting while driving, perhaps one fact will.

The device display shows if the owner was talking just before or as the accident happened.

A cell phone is part of the evidence at the scene of an accident. No subpoena needed.

This commentary from The New England Journal of Medicine says:

• One study shows there is four times the risk of accident if the driver is  talking on a cell phone when compared to a driver who is not.
• This same study shows the risk of driving-talking is equal to that of driving while intoxicated. Hand-free talking does not reduce the risk.
• Many more drivers talk than text. Therefore talking shows up as more dangerous because it is so much more common. More than 275 million Americans have cell phones. This article reports 81% of these drivers talk on their cell phones.
• A separate study showed that texting increases risk of a wreck by 23 times. U C?
• Twenty-eight percent of all crashes are caused either by talk or texting, a total of 1.6 million traffic accidents each year.

The New England Journal of Medicine

…”This scene appears in a British public service announcement. The video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LCmStIw9E) is horrifying to watch, but although it is obviously staged, the scenario is hardly a fiction: driving while distracted — by talking or texting — increases the likelihood of accident and injury. And some of these accidents kill people.

“Although it is difficult to assess the absolute increase in the risk of collision attributable to driver distraction, one study showed that talking on a cell phone while driving posed a risk four times that faced by undistracted drivers and on a par with that of driving while intoxicated.¹ Another study showed that texting while driving might confer a risk of collision 23 times that of driving while undistracted.² Although there are many possible distractions for drivers, more than 275 million Americans own cell phones, and 81% of them talk on those phones while driving.³ The adverse consequences have reached epidemic proportions. Current data suggest that each year, at least 1.6 million traffic accidents (28% of all crashes) in the United States are caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting.⁴ Talking on the phone causes many more accidents than texting, simply because millions more drivers talk than text; moreover, using a hands-free device does not make talking on the phone any safer.” (Emphasis added)

Citation: New England Journal of Medicine,Volume 362:2145-2147, June 10, 2010

Footnotes: Those displayed in excerpt above can be read in the full article online.