Study: Drivers on cells more likely to crash

Hands-free models no help

(CNN) -- A study released Tuesday said drivers who use cell phones -- even hands-free models -- are four times as likely to be involved in wrecks involving a serious injury than are drivers who do not use cell phones.

"There was no safety benefit whatsoever from using a hands-free phone," said Anne McCartt, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the British Medical Journal and paid for by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Researchers for the institute compared information on 456 crashes with driver cell-phone records and interviewed the crash victims shortly after they were treated in hospital emergency rooms.

"Our findings indicate that laws that still allow drivers to use hands-free devices will not eliminate the crash risk of phone use," said McCartt. "In fact, to the extent that drivers perceive that hand-free phone use is safer, in some sense, these laws could have a detrimental effect if drivers increase their use of hands-free phone use."

Connecticut and Chicago are the latest locales to ban cell phone use while driving unless it's hands-free.

In the study, neither gender nor age affected risk.

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When I was 17 my mom asked me to go to the store for some powdered iced tea mix because we were entertaining my step-father's daughters, son, and grandchildren at our house. The store was less than a mile away. I went through a green light, but the entrance to the store was almost immediately after the intersection, so I had to stop in back of two other people who were turning left with me. When I stopped someone hit me from behind. That person was on her cell phone talking to someone who was in the parking lot of that store. When she hit my car she pushed me into a high-model sports car. The driver of that car assumed because of my age that I was at fault and I lost it. The woman who had hit me confessed that she had caused the accident and gave me her cell phone so that I could call my mom. I was in full-blown tear mode when I called.

Mom arrived to the scene of the accident and I calmed down enough to give my statement to the police that the woman on her cell phone had hit me and pushed me into the back of the driver ahead of me. No matter whose fault it was, I was traumatized emotionally, I had severe back problems as a result, my insurance rates went up, and more than a decade later I still am nervous about driving.